Traditional narrative structure hit a wall--or rather it hit the glass of a kaleidoscope--in the 1990s, when art began to function as a kind of editing table on which daily reality could be remixed and recreated. Narrativity considers the importance of new narrative modes, looking not only at the visual arts but at contemporary literature and film, and the mutual influences between them. It tackles the question of narration--its ruptures and mutations--in an age of media culture and video games, where the ludic and interactive principle is an important element. Through reflections on time, duration and temporal protocols, which have taken on major aesthetic stakes, it seeks to reaffirm that the work of art is an "event" before being a monument or a mere testimony--an event which constitutes an experience. And, not least, it considers the artistic games and gambles allowed and forced by all this change.

In the 1990s, Shirin Neshat's startling black-and-white videos of Iranian women won enormous praise for their poetic reflections on post-revolutionary life in her native country. Writing in the New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl called her multi-screen video meditations on the culture of the chador in Islamic Iran "the first undoubtable masterpieces of video installation." Over the next twenty-five years Neshat's work has continued its passionate engagement with ancient and recent Iranian history, extending its reach to the universal experience of living in exile and the human impact of political revolution. This book connects Neshat's early video and photographic works-including haunting films such as Rapture, 1999 and Tooba, 2002-to her current projects which focus on the relation of home to exile and dreams such as The Home of My Eyes, 2015, and a new, never-before-seen project, Land of Dreams, 2019. It includes numerous stills from her series, Dreamers, in which she documents the lives of outsiders and exiles in the United States. This volume also includes essays by prominent Iranian cultural figures as well as an interview with the artist. Neshat has always been a voice for those whose individual freedoms are under attack. With this monograph, her audience will gain a deeper understanding of Neshat's own emotional, psychological, and political identities, and how they have helped her create compassionate portraits of the fraught and delicate spaces between attachment and alienation.

The Anarchist Cinema examines the complex relationships that exist between anarchist theory and film. No longer hidden in obscure corners of cinematic culture, anarchy is a theme that has traversed arthouse, underground and popular film. James Newton explores the notion that cinema is an inherently subversive space, establishes criteria for deeming a film anarchic, and examines the place of underground and DIY filmmaking within the wider context of the category. The author identifies subversive undercurrents in cinema and uses anarchist political theory as an interpretive framework to analyse filmmakers, genres and the notion of cinema as an anarchic space.

What happens when a drone enters a gallery or appears on screen? What thresholds are crossed as this weapon of war occupies everyday visual culture? These questions have appeared with increasing regularity since the advent of the War on Terror, when drones began migrating into civilian platforms of film, photography, installation, sculpture, performance art, and theater. In this groundbreaking study, Thomas Stubblefield attempts not only to define the emerging genre of "drone art" but to outline its primary features, identify its historical lineages, and assess its political aspirations. Richly detailed and politically salient, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of the intersections between drones, art, technology, and power.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the premiere of La Hora de Los Hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces) (Getino and Solanas, 1968), A Trail of Fire for Political Cinema is an edited collection that closely analyses the film, looking to the context and the socio-political landscape of 1960s Argentina, as well as the film's legacy and contemporary relevance. Attention is paid to the corpus of political documentaries made between 1968 to 1976, including those that marked the last coup d'etat in Argentina, to emphasize how formal and thematic trends relate to their Argentinian social context. In order to highlight The Hour of the Furnaces's contemporary relevance as a form of politically engaged activism, the book will also look at Fernando Solanas's documentary output in the twenty-first century.

Fiftieth anniversary reissue of the founding media studies book that helped establish media art as a cultural category. First published in 1970, Gene Youngblood's influential Expanded Cinema was the first serious treatment of video, computers, and holography as cinematic technologies. Long considered the bible for media artists, Youngblood's insider account of 1960s counterculture and the birth of cybernetics remains a mainstay reference in today's hypermediated digital world. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new Introduction by the author that offers conceptual tools for understanding the sociocultural and sociopolitical realities of our present world. A unique eyewitness account of burgeoning experimental film and the birth of video art in the late 1960s, this far- ranging study traces the evolution of cinematic language to the end of fiction, drama, and realism. Vast in scope, its prescient formulations include "the paleocybernetic age," "intermedia," the "artist as design scientist," the "artist as ecologist," "synaesthetics and kinesthetics," and "the technosphere: man/machine symbiosis." Outstanding works are analyzed in detail. Methods of production are meticulously described, including interviews with artists and technologists of the period, such as Nam June Paik, Jordan Belson, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Stan VanDerBeek, Les Levine, and Frank Gillette. An inspiring Introduction by the celebrated polymath and designer R. Buckminster Fuller-a perfectly cut gem of countercultural thinking in itself-places Youngblood's radical observations in comprehensive perspective. Providing an unparalleled historical documentation, Expanded Cinema clarifies a chapter of countercultural history that is still not fully represented in the arthistorical record half a century later. The book will also inspire the current generation of artists working in ever-newer expansions of the cinematic environment and will prove invaluable to all who are concerned with the technologies that are reshaping the nature of human communication.

British artist Gillian Wearing, winner of the 1997 Turner Prize, uses photography and video to explore the intimacies and complexities of everyday life. Borrowing from popular culture, her work is disturbing and confessional. In 1992 she began the acclaimed series Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants them to say', in which random passers-by are photographed holding messages they've written, such as the mild-mannered young businessman whose sign unexpectedly reads 'I'm Desperate'. Wearing's work borrows from familiar forms of popular culture to produce direct, revealing records of deep-seated human trauma and emotion, often adopting the methods of television documentaries for her 'fly-on-the-wall' view of people's lives. Her videos can be alarming, as in Confess All ... in which masked individuals confess their darkest secrets, or humorous, as in (Slight) Reprise - a sampler of adults playing 'air guitar' in the fantasy rock stadium of their bedrooms. Her art can be disconcerting or uplifting: an honest portrait of the many sides to contemporary life. With exhibitions in Britain, the US, Europe and Japan, Wearing is among the best-known and most internationally recognized of the recent generation of British artists. This is the first publication ever to survey this remarkable young artist's gripping work in its entirety. Russell Ferguson of UCLA's Hammer Museum contextualizes Wearing's work in relation to historical precedents in painting, photography and video art. Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art Donna De Salvo discusses with the artist her collaborative approach towards her work and its subjects. London-based critic John Slyce focuses on Wearing's work 10-16, a remarkable video installation that charts our transition from childhood to adolescence. The artist has selected transcripts from director Michael Apted's acclaimed British television documentary series Seven Up, an important influence on the process Wearing uses in her own work. Published here for the first time in full are the transcripts of the artist's video works.

Though in existence for only a few decades, video games are now firmly established in mainstream culture all around the planet. Every year new games are produced, and every year new favorites emerge. But certain characters have become so iconic that they withstand both time and the shifting interests of players. Such creations permeate other elements of popular culture-from graphic novels to film-and are known not only to dedicated gamers but to the general public as well. In 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, readers can learn about some of the most popular and influential figures that have leapt from computer monitors and television screens and into the public consciousness. The entries in this volume provide general facts about the characters as well as explore their cultural significance. The entries include the following information: *Game developer *Year character was established *Video game franchise In addition, the book examines the commonalities of various video game characters to help readers better understand their popularity and how they operate within the video games and the industry itself. Whether casually looking up information on video game characters or researching what these icons says about society, readers will enjoy this entertaining and informative volume. Comprehensive and engaging, 100 Greatest Video Game Characters will appeal to fans and scholars alike.

Making Images Move reveals a new history of cinema by uncovering its connections to other media and art forms. In this richly illustrated volume, Gregory Zinman explores how moving-image artists who worked in experimental film pushed the medium toward abstraction through a number of unconventional filmmaking practices, including painting and scratching directly on the film strip; deteriorating film with water, dirt, and bleach; and applying materials such as paper and glue. This book provides a comprehensive history of this tradition of "handmade cinema" from the early twentieth century to the present, opening up new conversations about the production, meaning, and significance of the moving image. From painted film to kinetic art, and from psychedelic light shows to video synthesis, Gregory Zinman recovers the range of forms, tools, and intentions that make up cinema's shadow history, deepening awareness of the intersection of art and media in the twentieth century, and anticipating what is to come.

Alejandro Cesarco: Song, published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Renaissance Society, brings together both new commissions and existing works. In the exhibition, Cesarco creates rhythm by incorporating silences and withholdings. The works form an installation drawing on the poetics of duration, refusal, repetition, and affective forms. This presentation, as in the artist's broader practice, represents a sustained investigation into time, memory, and how meaning is perceived. Centering on two related video works, the exhibition engaged deeply with histories of conceptual art. This catalog features an introduction by Solveig Ovstebo, a conversation between Alejandro Cesarco and Lynne Tillman, an essay by Julie Ault, and new short fiction by Wayne Koestenbaum in response to the exhibition.

When law student Atey Ghailan realized that he was doing more sketching than note-taking in class, he decided to pursue a career in art. Atey has written a book that showcases his best and most fascinating work, with details from behind the scenes of his experiences in the art industry so far. Atey's artistic journey, from doodling in class to Senior Illustrator at Riot Games, California is central to the book. In addition, he wants readers to consider their own exciting journey, whether they have still to set off, or are on the road already. Readers will discover insight to his creative workflow alongside practical tips and techniques that can be applied to their own practice. The book shares how the artist defeats the dreaded art block, using a visual library packed with ideas and inspiration, and Atey will be debuting a new and very personal project, unveiling completely new and extremely exciting art.

This volume is a response to the growing need for new methodological approaches to the rapidly changing landscape of new forms of performative practices. The authors address a host of contemporary phenomena situated at the crossroads between science and fiction which employ various media and merge live participation with mediated hybrid experiences at both affective and cognitive level. All essays collected here move across disciplinary divisions in order to provide an account of these new tendencies, thus providing food for thought for a wide readership ranging from performative studies to the social sciences, philosophy and cultural studies.

This book focuses on the artistic process, creativity and collaboration, and personal approaches to creation and ideation, in making digital and electronic technology-based art. Less interested in the outcome itself - the artefact, artwork or performance - contributors instead highlight the emotional, intellectual, intuitive, instinctive and step-by-step creation dimensions. They aim to shine a light on digital and electronic art practice, involving coding, electronic gadgetry and technology mixed with other forms of more established media, to uncover the practice-as-research processes required, as well as the collaborative aspects of art and technology practice.

An illustrated survey of the work of contemporary Belgian artist Emmanuel Van der Auwera The work of Brussels-based Belgian artist Emmanuel Van der Auwera (b. 1982) provides cautionary tales and tools for navigating information in post-truth times, making use of emerging technologies, the architecture of mass media, and more traditional approaches to image making. This book is the first to document and explore his films, VideoSculptures, and "Memento" series. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition Schedule: Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Zina Saro-Wiwa: Did You Know We Taught Them How to Dance? is the first publication on the work of Zina Saro-Wiwa, a British-Nigerian video artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Occupying the space between documentary and performance, Saro-Wiwa's videos, photographs, and sound produced in the Niger Delta region of southeastern Nigeria from 2013-2015 explore folklore, masquerade traditions, religious practices, food, and Nigerian popular aesthetics. Engaging Niger Delta residents as subjects and collaborators, Saro-Wiwa cultivates strategies of psychic survival and performance, testing contemporary art's capacity to transform and to envision new concepts of environment and environmentalism. Known for decades for corruption and environmental degradation, the Niger Delta is one of the largest oil producing regions of the world, and until 2010 provided the United States with a quarter of its oil. Saro-Wiwa returns to this contested region-the place of her birth-to tell new stories. Featuring a guest foreword by Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa; essays by Stephanie LeMenager, Amy L. Powell, and Taiye Selasi; an interview with the artist by Chika Okeke-Agulu; and recipes created by the artist.

Since the early 2000s, the phenomenon of the "down low"--black men who have sex with men as well as women and do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual--has exploded in news media and popular culture, from the "Oprah Winfrey Show" to R & B singer R. Kelly's hip hopera "Trapped in the Closet." Most down-low stories are morality tales in which black men are either predators who risk infecting their unsuspecting female partners with HIV or victims of a pathological black culture that repudiates openly gay identities. In both cases, down-low narratives depict black men as sexually dangerous, duplicitous, promiscuous, and contaminated.

In "Nobody Is Supposed to Know," C. Riley Snorton traces the emergence and circulation of the down low in contemporary media and popular culture to show how these portrayals reinforce troubling perceptions of black sexuality. Reworking Eve Sedgwick's notion of the "glass closet," Snorton advances a new theory of such representations in which black sexuality is marked by hypervisibility and confinement, spectacle and speculation. Through close readings of news, music, movies, television, and gossip blogs, "Nobody Is Supposed to Know "explores the contemporary genealogy, meaning, and functions of the down low.

Snorton examines how the down low links blackness and queerness in the popular imagination and how the down low is just one example of how media and popular culture surveil and police black sexuality. Looking at figures such as Ma Rainey, Bishop Eddie L. Long, J. L. King, and Will Smith, he ultimately contends that down-low narratives reveal the limits of current understandings of black sexuality.