The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the WordOxford University Press, 08.10.1998 - 272 Seiten For decades educators and cultural critics have deplored the corrosive effects of electronic media on the national consciousness. The average American reads less often, writes less well. And, numbed by the frenetic image-bombardment of music videos, commercials and sound bites, we may also, it is argued, think less profoundly. But wait. Is it just possible that some good might arise from the ashes of the printed word? Most emphatically yes, argues Mitchell Stephens, who asserts that the moving image is likely to make our thoughts not more feeble but more robust. Through a fascinating overview of previous communications revolutions, Stephens demonstrates that the charges that have been leveled against television have been faced by most new media, including writing and print. Centuries elapsed before most of these new forms of communication would be used to produce works of art and intellect of sufficient stature to overcome this inevitable mistrust and nostalgia. Using examples taken from the history of photography and film, as well as MTV, experimental films, and Pepsi commercials, the author considers the kinds of work that might unleash, in time, the full power of moving images. And he argues that these works--an emerging computer-edited and -distributed "new video"--have the potential to inspire transformations in thought on a level with those inspired by the products of writing and print. Stephens sees in video's complexities, simultaneities, and juxtapositions, new ways of understanding and perhaps even surmounting the tumult and confusions of contemporary life. Sure to spark lively--even heated--debate, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word belongs in the library of millennium-watchers everywhere. |
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Seite 6
... invention , communications medium , art form or drug . Recently , it is true , television has begun to seem like yesterday's invention . Digital communications have mesmerized the technologi- cally advanced and have won most of the ...
... invention , communications medium , art form or drug . Recently , it is true , television has begun to seem like yesterday's invention . Digital communications have mesmerized the technologi- cally advanced and have won most of the ...
Seite 17
... invention . * 5 The written word arrived relatively late in human history - in Sumeria and then Egypt a little more than five thousand years ago . It was the offspring of both words and images . The earliest writing systems used icons ...
... invention . * 5 The written word arrived relatively late in human history - in Sumeria and then Egypt a little more than five thousand years ago . It was the offspring of both words and images . The earliest writing systems used icons ...
Seite 18
... inventions . Socrates quotes Thoth's argu- ment for only one of his " arts , " the one of concern to Plato , writing : " This discipline , my King , will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories : my invention is a ...
... inventions . Socrates quotes Thoth's argu- ment for only one of his " arts , " the one of concern to Plato , writing : " This discipline , my King , will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories : my invention is a ...
Seite 19
... invention . Most of the peasants Luria interviewed were illiterate or , more accurately , preliterate : They lived , as generation after generation of their ancestors had lived , in small villages where they had almost no exposure to ...
... invention . Most of the peasants Luria interviewed were illiterate or , more accurately , preliterate : They lived , as generation after generation of their ancestors had lived , in small villages where they had almost no exposure to ...
Seite 21
... invention of writing.21 Still , the claim that can be made for writing is a large one . Our system of logic decrees that if the statement " All bears in the far north are white " is true and the statement " Novaya Zemlya is in the far ...
... invention of writing.21 Still , the claim that can be made for writing is a large one . Our system of logic decrees that if the statement " All bears in the far north are white " is true and the statement " Novaya Zemlya is in the far ...
Inhalt
2 | |
13 | |
THE MAGIC OF IMAGES | 55 |
THE NEW VIDEO | 131 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Photo credits | 232 |
Notes | 233 |
Bibliography | 246 |
Index | 254 |
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Alan Kay American appear art form artists audiences Bazin began begin Berrent Bob Schieffer Boorstin Braverman Brecht broadcast Bruce Conner cable camera century channels Chapter Cited commercial Conner couch Dickens director drama early editing Elizabeth Eisenstein example eyes fast cutting filmmakers Flaubert form of communication Greaser's Gauntlet Griffith Hank Corwin imitation invention irony Jonathan Franzen kind language less look Madame Bovary Magazine magic Mark Pellington McGuire Sisters means medium metaphor montage moving images music videos narrative Natural Born Killers newspaper novel on-screen once perhaps photographs Plato play potential printed word produced programs Prospero's Books Raymond Williams Renoir revolution scenes Scher screen seems sequence Sergei Eisenstein shot sion sometimes sound sound-bites stories talk techniques technologies Telephone interview television television's theater things Thoth thought tion Trainspotting videotape viewers watch writing wrote York young