Video

The Reflexive Medium
Suhrkamp | Insel
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English world rights (MIT Press), Japan (Sangensha), Poland (Oficyna Naukowa)


Video / Video
The Reflexive Medium
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...
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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 a 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. (book description of the English edition published by MIT Press)

2005, 480 pages
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Persons

Yvonne Spielmann is a research professor and Chair of New Media at the University of the West of Scotland. The English edition of Video. The Reflexive Medium was awarded the prestigious Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics in 2009.

Yvonne Spielmann is a research professor and Chair of New Media at the University of the West of Scotland. The English edition of Video. The...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Hybrid Cultures
Year of Publication: 2010
Yvonne SpielmannYear of Publication: 2010
Hybrid cultures are discussed as phenomena of the present. They emerge from connections between influences and elements of different media, and from various cultural contexts and discursive...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (MIT Press)