Lev Manovich on Tue, 24 Apr 2001 05:49:15 +0200 (CEST)
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[Nettime-bold] Book annoncement: The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich
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Title: Book annoncement: The Language of New Media by Lev
Man
I thought readers of this list might be
interested in this book. For more
information please visit
http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/MANGHF00
The Language of New Media
Lev Manovich
The MIT Press: March 2001. ISBN 0-262-13374-1.
352 pp., 55 illus. $34.95/£23.95 (cloth).
"Spend some of your time with this book, as time, in every sense,
will prove that its succinct and careful analysis of new media is the
most fundamental yet dynamic made. It is a must for filmmakers,
communication theorists, television producers, computer scientists,
programmers, cultural critics, artists, cultural historians, and
designers."
Sara Diamond, Artistic
Director, Media and Visual Arts, The Banff Centre
"This is simply the best book that I have read on the aesthetics of
new media."
Jay David Bolter, Wesley Chair of New Media, Georgia
Institute of Technology
"Manovich not only describes the recent history of new media, but
its foundations, and its intellectual and aesthetic debts to such
aspects of media history as Russian Constructivism and early
cinema."
Tom Gunning, Professor of Art History and
Cinema and Media, University of Chicago
"Lev Manovich's The Langauge of New Media is a major event for
those of us interested in understanding the nature of electronic
literature and art."
N. Katherine Hayles, Professor of English and of
Design and New Media, University of California, Los Angeles
In this book Lev Manovich places new media within the histories of
visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new
media's reliance on conventions of old media, such as the rectangular
frame and mobile camera, and shows how new media works create the
illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He shows
how categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and
database, work with the more familiar conventions to make possible a
new kind of aesthetic.
Manovich uses concepts from film theory,
art history, literary theory, and computer science and also develops
new theoretical constructs, such as cultural interface, spatial
montage, and cinegratography. The theory and
history of cinema play a particularly
important role in the book. Among other topics, Manovich discusses
parallels between the histories of cinema and of new media, digital
cinema, screen and montage in cinema and in new media, and historical
ties between avant-garde film and new media.
The book looks at most areas of new media: Web sites, virtual worlds,
VR, human-computer interfaces, computer games, computer animation,
digital video, special effects, and interactive intallations. It also
contains detailed analysis of new media works, from such commercial
classics as Myst and Jurassic Park, to the projects of new media
artists and collectives such as art+com and Jeffrey Shaw.
Most writings on new media are full of
speculation about the future. Manovich book analyses new media as it
has actually developed up until this point, at the same time pointing
to directions for new media designers and artists which have not been
yet explored.
Lev Manovich (www.manovich.net) is
an Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University
of California, San Diego. Born in Moscow, he holds advanced degrees in
cognitive psychology and visual culture. He has been working with
computer media for almost twenty years as an artist, designer,
animator, computer programmer, and teacher. His work has been
published in more than twenty countries, and he frequently lectures on
new media around the world.