[spectre] NEW Publication: MediaArtHistories

[Sabine Lindner]

MediaArtHistories, Edited by Oliver Grau; with contributions by Rudolf 
Arnheim, Andreas Broeckmann, Ron Burnett, Edmond Couchot, Sean Cubitt,

Dieter Daniels, Felice Frankel, Oliver Grau, Erkki Huhtamo, Douglas 
Kahn, Ryszard W. Kluszczynski, Machiko Kusahara, Timothy Lenoir, 
Lev Manovich, W. J. T. Mitchell, Gunalan Nadarajan, Christiane Paul, 
Louise Poissant, Edward A. Shanken, Barbara Maria Stafford and 
Peter Weibel 
Digital art has become a major contemporary art form, but it has 
yet to achieve acceptance from mainstream cultural institutions; 
it is rarely collected, and seldom included in the study of art history

or other academic disciplines. In MediaArtHistories, leading scholars 
seek to change this. They take a wider view of media art, placing it 
against the backdrop of art history. Their essays demonstrate that 
today's media art cannot be understood by technological details 
alone; it cannot be understood without its history, and it must be 
understood in proximity to other disciplines - film, cultural and 
media studies, computer science, philosophy, and sciences 
dealing with images. 
 
Contributors trace the evolution of digital art, from thirteenth
century 
Islamic mechanical devices and eighteenth century phantasmagoria, 
magic lanterns, and other multimedia illusions, to Marcel Duchamp's 
inventions and 1960s Kinetic and Op Art. They reexamine and redefine 
key media art theory terms--machine, media, exhibition--and consider 
the blurred dividing lines between art products and consumer products 
and between art images and science images. Finally, MediaArtHistories 
offers an approach for an interdisciplinary, expanded image science, 
which needs the trained eye of art history. 
 
MediaArtHistories, Cambridge/Mass. MIT-Press 2007 
http://www.mediaarthistories.org/pub/mediaarthistories.html 
OLIVER GRAU  Introduction - MediaArtHistories 
RUDOLF ARNHEIM  The Coming and Going of Images 
 
I Origins: Evolution Versus Revolution 
PETER WEIBEL  It is Forbidden Not to Touch: Some Remarks on the
(Forgotten Parts of the) History of Interactivity and Virtuality 
EDWARD SHANKEN  Historicizing Art and Technology: Forging a Method and
Firing a Canon 
ERKKI HUHTAMO  Twin-Touch-Test-Redux: Media Archeological Approach to
Art, Interactivity, and Tactility 
DIETER DANIELS  Duchamp: Interface: Turing: A Hypothetical Encounter
Between the Bachelor Machine and the Universal Machine 
OLIVER GRAU  Remember the Phantasmagoria! Illusion Politics of the 18th
Century and its Multimedial Afterlife 
GUNALAN NADARAJAN  Islamic Automation: A Reading of Al-Jazari's The
Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206) 
 
II Machine-Media-Exhibition 
EDMOND COUCHOT The Automatization of Figurative Techniques: Towards the
Autonomous Image 
ANDREAS BROECKMANN  Image, Process, Performance, Machine: Aspects of an
Aesthetics of the Machinic 
RYSZARD W. KLUSZCZYNSKI  From Film to Interactive Art: Transformation
in Media Art 
LOUISE POISSANT  The Passage from Material to Interface 
CHRISTIANE PAUL  The Myth of Immateriality: Presenting and Preserving
New Media 
 
III Pop Meets Science 
MACHIKO KUSAHARA  Device Art: A New Approach in Understanding Japanese
Contemporary Media Art 
RON BURNETT  Projecting Minds 
LEV MANOVICH  Abstraction and Complexity 
TIMOTHY LENOIR  Making Studies in New Media Critical 
 
IV Image Science 
FELICE FRANKEL  Image, Meaning, and Discovery 
W. J. T. MITCHEL  There are No Visual Media 
SEAN CUBITT  Projection: Vanishing and Becoming 
DOUGLAS KAHN  Between a Bach and a Hard Place: Productive Contraint in
Early Computer Arts 
BARBARA MARIA STAFFORD  Picturing Uncertainty: From Representation to
Mental Representation 
 
 
Oliver Grau is Professor for Image Science at Danube University Krems.
He is the author of Virtual Art: 
>From Illusion to Immersion (MIT Press, 2003), editor of Mediale
Emotionen (2005) and founder of the 
international digital art archive www.virtualart.at.