Morning Star

Morning Star

An expanded edition of revered theorist Michael Lwy’s Morning Star: Marxism and Surrealism (previously published in French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Greek), this masterwork collects the author’s essays on the ways in which surrealism intersected with a variety of revolutionary political approaches, ranging from utopian ideals to Marxism and situationism. Taking its title from Andr Breton’s essay ‘Arcane 17,’ which casts the star as the searing firebrand of rebellion, Lwy’s provocative work spans many perspectives. These include surrealist artists who were deeply interested in Marxism and anarchism (Breton among them), as well as Marxists who were deeply interested in surrealism (Walter Benjamin in particular).

Morning Star

Mathematics and Art

Mathematics and Art

Recent progress in research, teaching and communication has arisen from the use of new tools in visualization. To be fruitful, visualization needs precision and beauty. This book is a source of mathematical illustrations by mathematicians as well as artists. It offers examples in many basic mathematical fields including polyhedra theory, group theory, solving polynomial equations, dynamical systems and differential topology. For a long time, arts, architecture, music and painting have been the source of new developments in mathematics. And vice versa, artists have often found new techniques, themes and inspiration within mathematics. Here, while mathematicians provide mathematical tools for the analysis of musical creations, the contributions from sculptors emphasize the role of mathematics in their work. This book emphasizes and renews the deep relation between Mathematics and Art. The Forum Discussion suggests to develop a deeper interpenetration between these two cultural fields, notably in the teaching of both Mathematics and Art.

Mathematics and Art

The Artist and the Warrior

The Artist and the Warrior

How have artists across the millennia responded to warfare? In this uniquely wide-ranging book, Theodore Rabb blends military history and the history of art to search for the answers. He draws our attention to masterpieces from the ancient world to the twentieth century–paintings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, engravings, architecture, and photographs–and documents the evolving nature of warfare as artists have perceived it.

The Artist and the Warrior

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

From the age of Homer until late antiquity the culture of ancient Greece and Rome was permeated by images of Greek myths. Gods and heroes were represented as statues, on vase and wall paintings, on temples, on sarcophagi as well as on other media. This book offers, for the first time, a concise introduction into the interpretation of images of Greek myths. Its main aim is to make the pictorial versions of the myths comprehensible on their own terms. Ancient artists were well aware of the potential – but also the limitations – of these ‘silent’ images and of the strategies that made them ‘speak’ to the audience/viewer. The book combines detailed explanation of theoretical and methodological issues with exhaustive discussion of case studies. It will be useful and stimulating for all undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in classical mythology and ancient art.

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

The Marvel Vault

The Marvel Vault

The Marvel Vaultbrings the Universe to you, sharing the insiders story of Marvel Comics from 1939 to the present. Chock-full of historic and never-before-seen memorabilia (think: early sketches of Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch, Bullpen birthday cards, and a membership certificate for the Merry Marvel Marching Society), this vibrant chronicle contains over 30 plastic-encased archival gems that you can hold in your hand while reading about the artists, writers, and heroes who make up the Marvel Universe.Organized by decade,The Marvel Vaultleads readers through every era by letting them hold such rare items as holiday cards, the welcome kit from the original Merry Marvel Marching Society, the program for the first comics convention, and even the first sketches for characters who went on to become beloved Marvel icons.Whether youve been collectingSub-Marinerdime-books since the 1940s, or have just started to crack the pages of current Spidey sagas, youll want to gear up for Marvel-ous adventures with this dynamic collection!

The Marvel Vault

The Big Book of the Unexplained

The Big Book of the Unexplained

Are aliens already among us? Are hairy yetis and slim nessies lurking in our backwoods and backwaters? Are ghosts haunting the mansions of Hollywood? And who are those men in black? If questions like these keep you awake at night, then this is the book for you. Compiled with the help of over 40 of the world’s top comic artists, it features dozens of investigations into the most disturbing paranormal mysteries of all time – and even comes up with one or two answers. But how do you explain the unexplained?

The Big Book of the Unexplained

A History of Video Art

A History of Video Art

A History of Video Art is a revised and expanded edition of the 2006 original, which extends the scope of the first edition, incorporating a wider range of artists and works from across the globe and explores and examines developments in the genre of artists’ video from the mid 1990s up to the present day. In addition, the new edition expands and updates the discussion of theoretical concepts and ideas which underpin contemporary artists’ video. Tracking the changing forms of video art in relation to the revolution in electronic and digital imaging that has taken place during the last 50 years, A History of Video Art orients video art in the wider art historical context, with particular reference to the shift from the structuralism of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the post-modernist concerns of the 1980s and early 1990s. The new edition also explores the implications of the internationalisation of artists’ video in the period leading up to the new millennium and its concerns and preoccupations including post-colonialism, the post-medium condition and the impact and influence of the internet.

A History of Video Art

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night addresses tolerance and acceptance in the face of cultural, political, and religious strife. Its point of departure is the Walpurgis Night. The Night, also known as Beltane or May Eve, was supposedly an annual witches’ Sabbath that centered around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains. After exploring how a notoriously pagan celebration came to be named after the Christian missionary St. Walpurgis (ca. 710-79), John Michael Cooper discusses the Night’s treatments in several closely interwoven works by Goethe and Mendelssohn. His book situates those works in their immediate personal and professional contexts, as well as among treatments by a wide array of other artists, philosophers, and political thinkers, including Voltaire, Lessing, Shelley, Heine, Delacroix, and Berlioz. In an age of decisive political and religious conflict, Walpurgis Night became a heathen muse: a source of spiritual inspiration that was neither specifically Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. And Mendelssohn’s and Goethe’s engagements with it offer new insights into its role in European cultural history, as well as into issues of political, religious, and social identity — and the relations between cultural groups — in today’s world. John Michael Cooper is Professor of Music at Southwestern University and author of Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony (Oxford University Press).

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

Drawing Cutting Edge Comics

Drawing Cutting Edge Comics

Comic book artists are now developing cutting-edge, extreme comic book characters that go beyond the traditional heroes and villains. The heroes are grittier. The women are sexier. The pages are designed for maximum impact. Heroes have been turned into highly cool antiheroes, such as the famous characters Spawn and War Blade. Cutting-edge comics venture beyond the traditional boundaries to extreme anatomy, extreme costuming, extreme special effects, and extreme methods of storytelling.

Drawing Cutting Edge Comics

The Cyborg Experiments

The Cyborg Experiments

The Cyborg Experiments analyzes the challenges posed to corporeality by techology. Taking as their starting point the work of the highly influential performance artists Orlan and Stelarc, the essays in this timely and important collection raise a number of questions in relation to new conceptions of embodiment, identity and otherness in the age of new technologies: Has the body become obsolete? Does transgender challenge traditional ideas of agency? Have we always been cyborgs?In addition to highlighting the playful character of digital aesthetics, the contributors investigate ethical issues concerning the ownership of our bodies and the experiments we perform on them. In this way the book explores how humanism, and ideas of ‘the human’, have been placed under increasing scrutiny as a result of new developments in science, media and communications.Contributors:John Appleby, Rachel Armstrong, Fred Botting, Julie Clarke, Gary Hall, Chris Hables Gray, Meredith Jones, Orlan, Mark Poster, Jay Prosser, E. A. Scheer, Zod Sofia, Stelarc, Scott Wilson, Joanna Zylinska>

The Cyborg Experiments

Making Things See

Making Things See

This detailed, hands-on guide provides the technical and conceptual information you need to build cool applications with Microsoft’s Kinect, the amazing motion-sensing device that enables computers to see. Through half a dozen meaty projects, you’ll learn how to create gestural interfaces for software, use motion capture for easy , character animation, 3D scanning for custom fabrication, and many other applications.,

Perfect for hobbyists, makers, artists, and gamers, Making Things See shows you how to build every , with inexpensive off-the-shelf components, including the open source Processing , language and the Arduino microcontroller. You’ll learn basic skills that will enable you to pursue your own creative applications with Kinect.

Making Things See