Brossura

ISBN 10: 0262692864 ISBN 13: 9780262692861

Casa editrice: The MIT Press, 2003

Throughout the history of cinema, a radical avant-garde has existed on the fringes of the film industry. A great deal of research has focused on the pre- and early history of cinema, but there has been little speculation about a future cinema incorporating new electronic media. Electronic media have not only fundamentally transformed cinema but have altered its role as a witness to reality by rendering "realities" not necessarily linked to documentation, by engineering environments that incorporate audiences as participants, and by creating event-worlds that mix realities and narratives in forms not possible in traditional cinema. This hybrid cinema melds montage, traditional cinema, experimental literature, television, video, and the net. The new cinematic forms suggest that traditional cinema no longer has the capacity to represent events that are themselves complex configurations of experience, interpretation, and interaction.

This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the ZKM Institute for Visual Media, explores the history and significance of pre-cinema and of early experimental cinema, as well as the development of the unique theaters in which "immersion" evolved. Drawing on a broad range of scholarship, it examines the shift from monolithic Hollywood spectacles to works probing the possibilities of interactive, performative, and net-based cinemas. The post-cinematic condition, the book shows, has long roots in artistic practice and influences every channel of communication.

About the Author:

Jeffrey Shaw is Director of the Institute for Visual Media at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.

Peter Weibel is Director of ZKM | Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, and coeditor of other ZKM books, including Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (MIT Press).

Review:

"The editors offer a comprehensive look at the evolution of cinema."
— The Futurist

"...a well-packaged overview of the history and current scope of digital art, particularly of the interactive kind."
— Michael Rush