The Literariness of Media Art
Claudia Benthien author Jordis Lau author Maraike M Marxsen author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:10th Oct '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£135.00(9781138091511)
The beginning of the 20th century saw literary scholars from Russia positing a new definition for the nature of literature. Within the framework of Russian Formalism, the term ‘literariness’ was coined. The driving force behind this theoretical inquiry was the desire to identify literature—and art in general—as a way of revitalizing human perception, which had been numbed by the automatization of everyday life. The transformative power of ‘literariness’ is made manifest in many media artworks by renowned artists such as Chantal Akerman, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hill, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, Nalini Malani, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, and Lawrence Weiner. The authors use literariness as a tool to analyze the aesthetics of spoken or written language within experimental film, video performance, moving image installations, and other media-based art forms. This volume uses as its foundation the Russian Formalist school of literary theory, with the goal of extending these theories to include contemporary concepts in film and media studies, such as Neoformalism, intermediality, remediation, and postdrama.
"The Literariness of Media Art provides a powerful theoretical framework for the discussion of the unruly powers of media art. Inspired by the Russian concept of ostranenie ('making strange') coined in the heyday of early cinema and the avant-gardes, the authors prove to be sensitive to the techniques used in the arts to deautomatize and deepen perception. They reveal unexpected political dimensions within a seemingly aesthetically oriented topic, as made obvious in their analyses of the quirky language used in the artworks under discussion."
Annie van den Oever, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
"This book traces constellations of art practice across a wide and often surprising arrangement of media formats and formal methods. The result is a creative-critical patchwork that invites readers to think differently, not only about the individual works discussed in its chapters, but also, more reflexively and significantly, about how to think about art and literariness."
Jessica Pressman, University of San Diego, USA
"In a time where ideas of multimedia art, media specificity, and intermediality again flourish, it is refreshing to be reminded of the heritage in art and literary history, and how media art from the 1960s and onwards can be seen as a precursor to much of the contemporary art and literature across analogue and digital media. The Literariness of Media Art is essential reading for anyone interested in media arts, intermedia, and the future of art and literature."
Hans Kristian Rustad, University of Oslo, Norway
"In studying and re-defining the notion of 'literariness', The Literariness of Media Art gives us vivid insights into how media art investigates and appropriates literature and literary perceptions. The book brilliantly develops these perspectives into new and hitherto unforeseen paths, and shows us that literature still matters in a time of new media. The literary experience, therefore, is far from just something that happens in books, but is also a phenomenon we can trace and think of in and between (new) media.”
Stefan Kjerkegaard, Aarhus University, Denmark
ISBN: 9781138091528
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 700g
322 pages