[Leonardo/ISAST Network] Video: The Reflexive Medium, by Yvonne Spielmann -- Now Available from the Leonardo Book Series

[Leonardo/ISAST]

NEW from The Leonardo Book Series and MIT Press
 
VIDEO: THE REFLEXIVE MEDIUM by Yvonne Spielmann
 
Video is an electronic medium, dependent on the transfer of electronic 
signals. Video signals are in constant movement, circulating between 
camera and monitor. This process of simultaneous production and 
reproduction makes video the most reflexive of media, distinct from both 
photography and film (in which the image or a sequence of images is 
central). Because it is processual and not bound to recording and the 
appearance of a "frame," video shares properties with the computer. In 
this book, Yvonne Spielmann argues that video is not merely an 
intermediate stage between analog and digital but a medium in its own 
right. Video has metamorphosed from technology to medium, with a set of 
aesthetic languages that are specific to it, and current critical 
debates on new media still need to recognize this.

Spielmann considers video as "transformation imagery," acknowledging the 
centrality in video of the transitions between images--and the fact that 
these transitions are explicitly reflected in new processes. After 
situating video in a genealogical model that demonstrates both its 
continuities and discontinuities with other media, Spielmann considers 
three strands of video praxis--documentary, experimental art, and 
experimental image-making (which is concerned primarily with signal 
processing). She then discusses selected works by such artists as Vito 
Acconci, Ulrike Rosenbach, Joan Jonas, Nam June Paik, Peter Campus, Dara 
Birnbaum, Nan Hoover, Lynn Hershman, Gary Hill, Steina and Woody 
Vasulka, Bill Seaman, and others. These works serve to demonstrate the 
spectrum of possibilities in video as medium and point to connections 
with other forms of media. Finally, Spielmann discusses the potential of 
interactivity, complexity, and hybridization in the future of video as a 
medium.

Professor Yvonne Spielmann is Chair of New Media in the School of Media, 
Languages and Music, University of Paisley, Glasgow. She lives in 
Glasgow and Berlin.

Video: The Reflexive Medium
MIT Press/Leonardo Book Series
ISBN:0-262-19566-6
452 pp., 136 illus.
 
To order this book and to learn more about other titles in the Leonardo 
Book Series visit the Leonardo Book Series website at: 
http://www.leonardo.info/isast/leobooks.html
 
MEMBER DISCOUNT! Leonardo/ISAST Associate Members are eligible for 20% 
off all Leonardo Book Series titles as well as a number of other 
membership benefits! Visit http://leonardo.info/members.html for more 
details.
 
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