MediaArtHistories edited by Oliver GRAU now out as educational edition (paperback)


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. KLUSZCYNSKI, 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


 "A rich selection of important texts by some of the most noteworthy figures 
in media art history, and together they will do much to shape the content of 
this new discipline."                                                  -- Charlie GERE - Art Book

"Hmmm. That looks pretty handy." -- Bruce STERLING

"With the growth of media art (and media art programs), MediaArtHistories 
is an important--and timely--book. Scholars, teachers, and artists all have 
much to gain from reading it."                                                 -- Dene GRIGAR

"The essays presented in MediaArtHistories comprise a compelling addition 
to the bookshelf of any academic interested in art history." 
                                                                    -- Paul THOMAS, realtime +onscreen 

"MediaArtHistories provides a wide view on the complex, in-progress field 
of media art, in which this volume intends to stand as one of the main 
bibliographical reference points."                 -- Horea AVRAM, Rhizome.org


CONTENTS: 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. 


WEBSITES:
BOOK  http://www.mediaarthistory.org/pub/mediaarthistories.html 
MAH Conference Series & Archive www.mediaarthistories.org 
FACEBOOK MAH Platform www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36056054067&v=wall 
www.amazon.com  (->MediaArtHistories)