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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > From 1900 > Art styles, 1960 - > Electronic & video art
Over the course of his career Werner Herzog, known for such
visionary masterpieces as Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) and The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), has directed almost sixty films,
roughly half of which are documentaries. And yet, in a statement
delivered during a public appearance in 1999, the filmmaker
declared: "There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is
such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and
elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and
imagination and stylization." Ferocious Reality is the first book
to ask how this conviction, so hostile to the traditional tenets of
documentary, can inform the work of one of the world's most
provocative documentarians. Herzog, whose Cave of Forgotten Dreams
was perhaps the most celebrated documentary of 2010, may be the
most influential filmmaker missing from major studies and histories
of documentary. Examining such notable films as Lessons of Darkness
(1992) and Grizzly Man (2005), Eric Ames shows how Herzog dismisses
documentary as a mode of filmmaking in order to creatively
intervene and participate in it. In close, contextualized analysis
of more than twenty-five films spanning Herzog's career, Ames makes
a case for exploring documentary films in terms of performance and
explains what it means to do so. Thus his book expands the field of
cinema studies even as it offers an invaluable new perspective on a
little studied but integral part of Werner Herzog's extraordinary
oeuvre.
Fiona Tan is one of the most distinctive contemporary artists
working in film and video. Her work moves between documentation and
fiction, biography and fantasy. In using historical and
ethnographic film material, Tan shows portraits of individuals and
groups from different cultural backgrounds and social strata.
"Mirror Maker" includes important works dating from the last eight
years.
Children and horror are often thought to be an incompatible meeting
of audience and genre, beset by concerns that children will be
corrupted or harmed through exposure to horror media. Nowhere is
this tension more clear than in horror films for adults, where the
demonic child villain is one of the genre's most enduring tropes.
However, horror for children is a unique category of contemporary
Hollywood cinema in which children are addressed as an audience
with specific needs, fears and desires, and where child characters
are represented as sympathetic protagonists whose encounters with
the horrific lead to cathartic, subversive and productive outcomes.
Horror Films for Children examines the history, aesthetics and
generic characteristics of children's horror films, and identifies
the 'horrific child' as one of the defining features of the genre,
where it is as much a staple as it is in adult horror but with
vastly different representational, interpretative and affective
possibilities. Through analysis of case studies including
blockbuster hits (Gremlins), cult favourites (The Monster Squad)
and indie darlings (Coraline), Catherine Lester asks, what happens
to the horror genre, and the horrific children it represents, when
children are the target audience?
An in-depth look into the transformation of visual culture and
digital aesthetics  First introduced by the German filmmaker
Harun Farocki, the term operational images defines the expanding
field of machine vision. In this study, media theorist Jussi
Parikka develops Farocki’s initial concept by considering the
extent to which operational images have pervaded today’s visual
culture, outlining how data technologies continue to develop and
disrupt our understanding of images beyond representation. Charting
the ways that operational images have been employed throughout a
variety of fields and historical epochs, Parikka details their many
roles as technologies of analysis, capture, measurement,
diagramming, laboring, (machine) learning, identification,
tracking, and destruction. He demonstrates how, though inextricable
from issues of power and control, operational images extend their
reach far beyond militaristic and colonial violence and into the
realms of artificial intelligence, data, and numerous aspects of
art, media, and everyday visual culture. Serving as an extensive
guide to a key concept in contemporary art, design, and media
theory, Operational Images explores the implications of machine
vision and the limits of human agency. Through a wealth of case
studies highlighting the areas where imagery and data intersect,
this book gives us unprecedented insight into the ever-evolving
world of posthuman visuality. Cover alt text: Satellite photo on
which white title words appear in yellow boxes. Yellow lines
connect the boxes.
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