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This book deals with processes of reception in visual arts. Images (in the broadest sense) from different cultures and times are examined. The volume focuses on two key interpretations of reception. On the one hand, reception is understood as a concept of repetition and revision spanning different cultures and time periods. On the other hand, reception is also seen as the process of perceiving images. Both ways of understanding can be described by the metaphor of migration of images: in the first case, images migrate from one medium to another; in the second case, they migrate from the artefact into the human body. The contributions to this volume cover a variety of approaches coming from different disciplines such as Ancient Oriental philology, English and American studies, classical studies, classical archaeology, communication studies, cultural studies, art history, aesthetics, literature, media studies, philosophy, journalism, Romance studies, sociology, Near Eastern archaeology, prehistory, and classical studies.
In the new media environment, how are bodies and images related? How can, in other words, the human body be integrated with and reformulated in relation to the sensory and perceptual dimension? In response to this question, Image Embodiment looks not just to images and surface appearences but addresses at a deeper level the media that act as the supports for aesthetics. To think about visual culture in the twenty-first century necessarily implies the thinking of the specific role of media technologies. A view to media not only teases out the technical infrastructure of images but brings with it the potential for addressing the different sense modalities and realities of the human body. Recen...
One of the big myths and metaphors of the postmodern age is the Cyborg, which includes a large amount of different meanings. The Cyborg often expresses the transformation and extension of the body and exemplifies a postmodern range of technical determinism and human comprehension. In this perspective the Cyborg is no longer a concept of science fiction, technical apocalypse or cyberpunk, but more a construct that highlights the relation of modern media technologies within our every day culture; as well as the body and mind of spectators and users of these media systems. We are connected with a variety of poly-sensual media systems, and we use its potential for communication, multiplying knowledge, spatial and temporal orientation or aesthetic experience. Therefore we are a kind of Cyborgs, connected to media by complex multimodal interfaces. This volume monitors and discusses the relation of postmodern humans and media technologies and therefore refers to Cyborgs, interfaces and apparatuses within the perspective of an autonomous image science.
This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study. Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The vo...
In Afterlives, the literary scholar Camilla Storskog investigates how classics with Scandinavian origin have been reinterpreted as comics. She sets out how literary works, plays, and films have crossed and recrossed the boundaries of language and media, speaking to new times and new contexts. Comic art adaptations have long been neglected by academics, so in this book the author considers them as unique visual media with their own aesthetic, technical, and narrative qualities.
The book examines the process of symbolic and material alteration of religious images in antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period. The process by which the form and meaning of images are modified and adapted for a new context is defined by a large number of spiritual, religious, artistic, geographical or historical circumstances. This book provides a defined theoretical framework for these symbolic and material alterations based on the concept of iconotropy; that is, the way in which images change and/or alter their meaning. Iconotropy is a key concept in religious history, particularly for periods in which religious changes, often turbulent, took place. In addition, the iconotropic process of appropriating cult images brought with it changes in the materiality of those images. Numerous accounts from antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period detail how cult images were involved in such processes of misinterpretation, both symbolically and materially. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture and religious history.
Collective Actions is one of the most significant artistic practices to emerge from Moscow Conceptualism. The group's enigmatic idea of 'Empty action' is the focal point for Marina Gerber's exploration of this practice in relation to labour in the late Soviet Union. Based on interviews with members of the group (Monastyrski, Panitkov, Alexeev, Makarevich, Elagina, Romashko, Hänsgen and Kiesewalter) she exposes the relation between their jobs, their individual art practices and their contribution to the collective in the context of post-Stalinist debates on labour and free time. Departing from the mundane fact that Collective Actions' practice took place in free time from work for the Soviet State, Gerber identifies Empty action as a form of 'art after work'.
With the goals of participation and sustainability, libraries advocate for democratic values that are anchored in the German constitution. It is on this foundation that libraries ask themselves political questions and set themselves political tasks within the scope of their social mandate. This applies to public and research libraries and explains the great spectrum of tasks and services with which they make an impact on society.