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The sacred and film : Darren Aronofsky’s transcendent cinema
Kępiński, Marcin
Jagiellonian University Press
, 2025
; English
; 263 Pages
The book about the transcendent cinema of Darren Aronofsky takes the reader on a journey through the selected filmography of this outstanding American director. A monograph devoted entirely to his extraordinary work, which among film experts and film audiences has both a group of devoted admirers and critics. A strong, even anarchist accent falls here on the type of film hero presented, living on the margins of society and consciously rejecting its normative structures. The films, as well as the literature to which the book refers, are an expression of a critical attitude towards symbolic violence and the imposition of creatively limiting cultural norms on the individual, requiring such ordering such and no other understanding and experiencing the surrounding world. An astute observer of Darren Aronofsky's work will notice the existence of metaphysical problems in it, sometimes directly directed towards religious issues. We can call this kind of cinema transcendent. This cinema is only seemingly pessimistic in its meaning. It is worth looking for mythical stories to try to hear and understand what they have to offer us. It is worth turning to transcendence and trying to express the inexpressible, also in the art of film, as does Darren Aronofsky, who wants to be a trustee of great mythical narratives. These features, so characteristic of the director, can be seen, to a greater or lesser extent, in all his films, especially those referred to in this monograph. It will be interesting for the reader who expects from contemporary cinema something more than unsophisticated entertainment and wants to go beyond its ludic dimension.
Kępiński, Marcin
Jagiellonian University Press
, 2025
; English
; 263 Pages
The book about the transcendent cinema of Darren Aronofsky takes the reader on a journey through the selected filmography of this outstanding American director. A monograph devoted entirely to his extraordinary work, which among film experts and film audiences has both a group of devoted admirers and critics. A strong, even anarchist accent falls here on the type of film hero presented, living on the margins of society and consciously rejecting its normative structures. The films, as well as the literature to which the book refers, are an expression of a critical attitude towards symbolic violence and the imposition of creatively limiting cultural norms on the individual, requiring such ordering such and no other understanding and experiencing the surrounding world. An astute observer of Darren Aronofsky's work will notice the existence of metaphysical problems in it, sometimes directly directed towards religious issues. We can call this kind of cinema transcendent. This cinema is only seemingly pessimistic in its meaning. It is worth looking for mythical stories to try to hear and understand what they have to offer us. It is worth turning to transcendence and trying to express the inexpressible, also in the art of film, as does Darren Aronofsky, who wants to be a trustee of great mythical narratives. These features, so characteristic of the director, can be seen, to a greater or lesser extent, in all his films, especially those referred to in this monograph. It will be interesting for the reader who expects from contemporary cinema something more than unsophisticated entertainment and wants to go beyond its ludic dimension.
eBook
Techno-ecologies of bill viola and gilbert simondon: the birth of form
Río, Elena del
Edinburgh University Press
, 2025
; English
; 281 Pages
Jointly explores Bill Viola’s video art and Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation through their shared understanding of the interpenetration of nature and technology
Expands the study of Viola’s art beyond aesthetics and beyond representation
Situates Viola’s aesthetic practice in relation to Simondon’s theory of individuation, and his philosophy of nature and technology
Emphasises the dimension of Viola as technical innovator - the artist-technician
Provides a thorough analysis of 18 major Viola works and discusses the cinematic significance of his art
Makes Simondon’s philosophy accessible by reference to the specific analysis of Viola’s art
Both Viola and Simondon prioritise a techno-aesthetic experience that reveals a consistent pattern of interdependence between form and matter, nature and culture, human and nonhuman. Inspired by Simondon’s ideas on individuation as process, and by other major figures of process philosophy such as Raymond Ruyer, Deleuze and Guattari, and Brian Massumi, Elena del Río delves deep into Viola’s art and finds a politics of nature that is also a politics of the affects. In taking full account of the interrelation between collective affects and living milieus, this politics exceeds the still anthropocentric project of a politics reductively focused on environmental degradation.
The book works with a broad concept of ecology that encompasses a nature-culture continuum - from Simondon’s associated milieu to Guattari’s tripartite ecological praxis, from Deleuze and Guattari’s existential territories to Massumi’s affective events. Attending to this nature-culture continuum and activating our collective energies are prime strategies in tackling the overwhelming psycho-social and environmental crises we face.
Río, Elena del
Edinburgh University Press
, 2025
; English
; 281 Pages
Jointly explores Bill Viola’s video art and Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation through their shared understanding of the interpenetration of nature and technology
Expands the study of Viola’s art beyond aesthetics and beyond representation
Situates Viola’s aesthetic practice in relation to Simondon’s theory of individuation, and his philosophy of nature and technology
Emphasises the dimension of Viola as technical innovator - the artist-technician
Provides a thorough analysis of 18 major Viola works and discusses the cinematic significance of his art
Makes Simondon’s philosophy accessible by reference to the specific analysis of Viola’s art
Both Viola and Simondon prioritise a techno-aesthetic experience that reveals a consistent pattern of interdependence between form and matter, nature and culture, human and nonhuman. Inspired by Simondon’s ideas on individuation as process, and by other major figures of process philosophy such as Raymond Ruyer, Deleuze and Guattari, and Brian Massumi, Elena del Río delves deep into Viola’s art and finds a politics of nature that is also a politics of the affects. In taking full account of the interrelation between collective affects and living milieus, this politics exceeds the still anthropocentric project of a politics reductively focused on environmental degradation.
The book works with a broad concept of ecology that encompasses a nature-culture continuum - from Simondon’s associated milieu to Guattari’s tripartite ecological praxis, from Deleuze and Guattari’s existential territories to Massumi’s affective events. Attending to this nature-culture continuum and activating our collective energies are prime strategies in tackling the overwhelming psycho-social and environmental crises we face.
eBook
Celebrity bromance and comradery capital in Asia
Lam, Celia; Raphael-Luu, Jackie
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 247 Pages
From Bollywood to K-Pop, from Crazy Rich Asians to YouTube stars and Boys’ Love media, this book brings together leading scholars to explore “bromance” in celebrity culture across Asia.
Celebrity Bromance and Comradery Capital in Asia demonstrates how celebrity bromances are used as global promotional tools in different national and transnational contexts, including China, Thailand, India and beyond.
Across chapters written by leading international scholars, the book demonstrates how a “comradery capital” develops as Asian bromances become not just a promotional tool but commodities in their own right in contemporary celebrity culture.
Lam, Celia; Raphael-Luu, Jackie
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 247 Pages
From Bollywood to K-Pop, from Crazy Rich Asians to YouTube stars and Boys’ Love media, this book brings together leading scholars to explore “bromance” in celebrity culture across Asia.
Celebrity Bromance and Comradery Capital in Asia demonstrates how celebrity bromances are used as global promotional tools in different national and transnational contexts, including China, Thailand, India and beyond.
Across chapters written by leading international scholars, the book demonstrates how a “comradery capital” develops as Asian bromances become not just a promotional tool but commodities in their own right in contemporary celebrity culture.
eBook
Sampling and site-specific practice in contemporary art
Bouman, Margot
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 217 Pages
In the early 20th century, copying, cutting and pasting entered the Western European avant-garde through collage and readymades, as artists employed found objects and ephemera to create new meaning from existing materials.
This book explores how this practice has evolved in contemporary art today, looking at its important and distinct outcomes in the practice of artists such as Andrea Fraser, Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Christian Marclay, Amie Siegel and Christopher Williams. It analyses the pivotal consequences of the interrelationships these artists establish between fragments of culture, from television and film, to internet culture and their artwork's site, where the verb to "sample" has become deeply tied to digital music editing, writing, image production, database searches and social media.
Samples take many forms: quotations of other cultural works
replicas of other objects
reenactments of works by other artists
or fragments that are quite literally cut or removed from other works of art, design, or media. Via Bouman's analysis, we visualise the shared frameworks of meaning that underpin these multifaceted, multidimensional and medium-fluid works. Focussing on 'action' and 'form', the book discusses the relationship between the referent and reference, and the citational labor that any sample performs. The distributive sense of authorship that emerges places the audience in a new position of significance.
Concepts and themes discussed include: queer and race theory, postproduction and mirroring, mobile site specificity, now-time and dragging, and gender fluidity and Drag King performance, centring sampling as a key form of 21st-century art. With novel insights into the conceptual, material, and aesthetic dimensions of sampling in contemporary culture, the book provides a new critical framework for understanding the complex implications of this practice, as a vital resource for researchers in contemporary art practice and visual culture.
Bouman, Margot
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 217 Pages
In the early 20th century, copying, cutting and pasting entered the Western European avant-garde through collage and readymades, as artists employed found objects and ephemera to create new meaning from existing materials.
This book explores how this practice has evolved in contemporary art today, looking at its important and distinct outcomes in the practice of artists such as Andrea Fraser, Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Christian Marclay, Amie Siegel and Christopher Williams. It analyses the pivotal consequences of the interrelationships these artists establish between fragments of culture, from television and film, to internet culture and their artwork's site, where the verb to "sample" has become deeply tied to digital music editing, writing, image production, database searches and social media.
Samples take many forms: quotations of other cultural works
replicas of other objects
reenactments of works by other artists
or fragments that are quite literally cut or removed from other works of art, design, or media. Via Bouman's analysis, we visualise the shared frameworks of meaning that underpin these multifaceted, multidimensional and medium-fluid works. Focussing on 'action' and 'form', the book discusses the relationship between the referent and reference, and the citational labor that any sample performs. The distributive sense of authorship that emerges places the audience in a new position of significance.
Concepts and themes discussed include: queer and race theory, postproduction and mirroring, mobile site specificity, now-time and dragging, and gender fluidity and Drag King performance, centring sampling as a key form of 21st-century art. With novel insights into the conceptual, material, and aesthetic dimensions of sampling in contemporary culture, the book provides a new critical framework for understanding the complex implications of this practice, as a vital resource for researchers in contemporary art practice and visual culture.
eBook
Undead : (inter)(in)animation, feminisms, and the art of war
Redrobe, Karen
University of California Press
, 2025
; English
; 254 Pages
Undead examines the visual culture of war, broadly understood, through the lens of animation. Focusing on works in which relational, intermedial, and variably paced practices of "(inter)(in)animation" generate aesthetic tactics for thinking about, feeling, and reframing war, Karen Redrobe analyzes works by artists including Yael Bartana, Nancy Davenport, Kelly Dolak and Wazhmah Osman, Gesiye, David Hartt, Helen Hill, Onyeka Igwe, Maryam Mohajer, Ibrahim Nasrallah, and Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley. Deftly moving between cinema and media studies, peace and conflict studies, and art history, Undead is an interdisciplinary feminist meditation on the complex relationship between states of war and the discourses, infrastructures, and institutions through which memory, change, and understanding are made.
Redrobe, Karen
University of California Press
, 2025
; English
; 254 Pages
Undead examines the visual culture of war, broadly understood, through the lens of animation. Focusing on works in which relational, intermedial, and variably paced practices of "(inter)(in)animation" generate aesthetic tactics for thinking about, feeling, and reframing war, Karen Redrobe analyzes works by artists including Yael Bartana, Nancy Davenport, Kelly Dolak and Wazhmah Osman, Gesiye, David Hartt, Helen Hill, Onyeka Igwe, Maryam Mohajer, Ibrahim Nasrallah, and Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley. Deftly moving between cinema and media studies, peace and conflict studies, and art history, Undead is an interdisciplinary feminist meditation on the complex relationship between states of war and the discourses, infrastructures, and institutions through which memory, change, and understanding are made.
eBook
梁良
新銳文創
, 2025
; Traditional Chinese
; 272 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
eBook
梁良
新銳文創
, 2025
; Traditional Chinese
; 272 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
eBook
李安與摩登魯迅．第七藝V山湖篇──悵然之後生命昇華契機 THE 7TH ART TREATISE V: THE TRAUMA & ANG LEE
林慎
新銳文創
, 2025
; Traditional Chinese
; 160 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
林慎
新銳文創
, 2025
; Traditional Chinese
; 160 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
eBook
Confessional video art and subjectivity : private experiences in public spaces
Early, Jaye
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 185 Pages
This is the first book of its kind to examine the development of the confessional subject in video art and demonstrate how it can provide a vital platform for navigating the politics of self, subjectivity, and resistance in society. In doing so, it reframes video art – the most ubiquitous and yet most understudied art form of recent decades – as an urgent socio-political tool that is increasingly popular among contemporary artists as a means of exploring a broad range of social issues, from politics and identity, to the body and technologies of self-representation.
Analysing a diverse selection of case studies from the 1960s up to the present day, covering the work of Yoko Ono, Gillian Wearing, Ryan Trecartin, Tracey Emin, Anatasia Klose, and Heath Franco, among others, the book brings together theory and practice to look afresh at contemporary video art through a Foucauldian lens. It also brings the analysis of video art up to date by showing how social media and digital self representation has informed and further politicized time-based art practices.
Confessional Video Art and Subjectivity shows how forms of confessional discourse not only play an important function in the construction of subjectivity but also open spaces for personal resistance and agency within contemporary video art. As a result, it offers researchers of contemporary art practice, and media and cultural studies, an updated framework through which to view this constantly-evolving genre and a deeper understanding of wider contemporary video practices.
Early, Jaye
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 185 Pages
This is the first book of its kind to examine the development of the confessional subject in video art and demonstrate how it can provide a vital platform for navigating the politics of self, subjectivity, and resistance in society. In doing so, it reframes video art – the most ubiquitous and yet most understudied art form of recent decades – as an urgent socio-political tool that is increasingly popular among contemporary artists as a means of exploring a broad range of social issues, from politics and identity, to the body and technologies of self-representation.
Analysing a diverse selection of case studies from the 1960s up to the present day, covering the work of Yoko Ono, Gillian Wearing, Ryan Trecartin, Tracey Emin, Anatasia Klose, and Heath Franco, among others, the book brings together theory and practice to look afresh at contemporary video art through a Foucauldian lens. It also brings the analysis of video art up to date by showing how social media and digital self representation has informed and further politicized time-based art practices.
Confessional Video Art and Subjectivity shows how forms of confessional discourse not only play an important function in the construction of subjectivity but also open spaces for personal resistance and agency within contemporary video art. As a result, it offers researchers of contemporary art practice, and media and cultural studies, an updated framework through which to view this constantly-evolving genre and a deeper understanding of wider contemporary video practices.
eBook
葉嘉詠
新銳文創
, 2024
; Traditional Chinese
; 188 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
eBook
葉嘉詠
新銳文創
, 2024
; Traditional Chinese
; 188 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
eBook
李安與摩登魯迅‧第七藝IV冰暴篇──超克déjà vu的華人困境 THE 7TH ART TREATISE IV: THE HSIA QUESTION & ANG LEE
林慎
新銳文創
, 2024
; Traditional Chinese
; 158 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
林慎
新銳文創
, 2024
; Traditional Chinese
; 158 Pages
There is no abstract available for this title.
