Arguing that the computer is rewriting the old conceptions of man and his world, it suggests that the telecoms revolution is also a sexual revolution which undermines the fundamental assumptions crucial to patriarchal culture. Historical, contemporary and future developments in telecommunications and in IT are interwoven with the past, present and future of feminism, women and sexual difference, and a wealth of connections, parallels and affinities between machines and women are uncovered as a result. Challenging the belief that man was ever in control of either his own agency, the planet, or his machines, this book argues it is seriously undermined by the new scientific paradigms emergent from theories of chaos, complexity and connectionism, all of which suggest that the old distinctions between man, woman, nature and technology need to be radically reassessed.

    The intangibility of sound is uncanny – a phenomenal presence in the head, at its point of source and all around. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there.The history of listening must be constructed from the narratives of myth and fiction, ‘silent’ arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature. In such contexts, sound often functions as a metaphor for mystical revelation, forbidden desires, formlessness, the unknown, and the unconscious. As if reading a map of hitherto unexplored territory, Sinister Resonance deciphers sounds and silences buried within the ghostly horrors of Arthur Machen, Shirley Jackson, Charles Dickens, M.R. James and Edgar Allen Poe, Dutch genre painting from Rembrandt to Vermeer, artists as diverse as Francis Bacon and Juan Munoz, and the writing of many modernist authors including Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce.

    A new introductory section discusses the meaning of such concepts as modernity, postmodernity, modernization, modernism, and postmodernism. A section on feminist criticism of Lacan and Foucault has been added, together with a new chapter on French feminist theory focusing on the work of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva.The chapter on postmodernism has been significantly expanded to include a discussion of Lyotard's language games and his use of the category "sublime." This chapter ends with a discussion of the relationship between feminism and postmodernism. A further chapter has been added on the work of Jean Baudrillard, a cult figure on the current postmodernist scene, whose ideas have attained a wide currency. The chapter includes a new section on postmodern cultural practices as revealed in architecture, TV, video, and film. Suggestions for further reading are now listed at the end of each chapter and are upgraded and annotated.In tracing the impact of post-structuralist thought not only on literary criticism but on such disciplines as philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, the social sciences, and art, this book will be essential reading for those who want a clear and incisive introduction to the theories that continue to have widespread influence.

    Together, how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image?In The Stack, Benjamin Bratton proposes that these different genres of computation—smart grids, cloud platforms, mobile apps, smart cities, the Internet of Things, automation—can be seen not as so many species evolving on their own, but as forming a coherent whole: an accidental megastructure called The Stack that is both a computational apparatus and a new governing architecture. We are inside The Stack and it is inside of us. In an account that is both theoretical and technical, drawing on political philosophy, architectural theory, and software studies, Bratton explores six layers of The Stack: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User. Each is mapped on its own terms and understood as a component within the larger whole built from hard and soft systems intermingling—not only computational forms but also social, human, and physical forces. This model, informed by the logic of the multilayered structure of protocol “stacks,” in which network technologies operate within a modular and vertical order, offers a comprehensive image of our emerging infrastructure and a platform for its ongoing reinvention. The Stack is an interdisciplinary design brief for a new geopolitics that works with and for planetary-scale computation. Interweaving the continental, urban, and perceptual scales, it shows how we can better build, dwell within, communicate with, and govern our worlds.

    In the second half, he examines the historical relations of modern art and the modern museum, the conceptual vicissitudes of art history and visual studies, the recent travails of art criticism, and the double aftermath of modernism and postmodernism. Written in a lively style, Design and Crime offers historical sketches and contemporary test-cases in an attempt to illuminate the conditions for critical culture in the present.

    The buildings of Robert Venturi and Michael Graves, among others, are featured.

    I have selected a small set of common errors in reasoning and visualized them using memorable illustrations that are supplemented with lots of examples. The hope is that the reader will learn from these pages some of the most common pitfalls in arguments and be able to identify and avoid them in practice.

    A meditation on the act of listening and the nature of performance, Cage’s controversial piece became the iconic statement of the meaning of silence in art and is a landmark work of American music.In this book, Kyle Gann, one of the nation’s leading music critics, explains 4'33" as a unique moment in American culture and musical composition. Finding resemblances and resonances of 4'33" in artworks as wide-ranging as the paintings of the Hudson River School and the music of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, he provides much-needed cultural context for this fundamentally challenging and often misunderstood piece. Gann also explores Cage’s craft, describing in illuminating detail the musical, philosophical, and even environmental influences that informed this groundbreaking piece of music. Having performed 4'33" himself and as a composer in his own right, Gann offers the reader both an expert’s analysis and a highly personal interpretation of Cage’s most divisive work.

    Sartre considers the artist’s “function,” and the relation of art and the artist to the human condition. Sartre integrates his deep concern for the sensibilities of the artist with a fascinating analysis of the techniques of the artist as creator. The result is a vibrant manifesto of existentialist aesthetics. By looking at existentialism through the lens of great art, Essays in Aesthetics is just as valuable a read to the artist as it is to the philosopher.

    Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The book is concerned with the basic forms of through which, in accordance with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experience it, are exemplified in the attributing of motives. These forms of though can be embodied profoundly or trivially, truthfully or falsely. They are equally present in systematically elaborated or metaphysical structures, in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political and scientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at random."

    She approaches art as a form of erotic expression connecting sensory richness with primal desire, and in doing so, finds that the meaning of art comes from the intensities and sensations it inspires, not just its intention and aesthetic.By regarding our most cultured human accomplishments as the result of the excessive, nonfunctional forces of sexual attraction and seduction, Grosz encourages us to see art as a kind of bodily enhancement or mode of sensation enabling living bodies to experience and transform the universe. Art can be understood as a way for bodies to augment themselves and their capacity for perception and affection-a way to grow and evolve through sensation. Through this framework, which knits together the theories of Charles Darwin, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, F�lix Guattari, and Jakob von Uexk�ll, we are able to grasp art's deep animal lineage.Grosz argues that art is not tied to the predictable and known but to new futures not contained in the present. Its animal affiliations ensure that art is intensely political and charged with the creation of new worlds and new forms of living. According to Grosz, art is the way in which life experiments with materiality, or nature, in order to bring about change.

    There are very few recent books that tackle the subject, and in this new effort, written with the scholar and orator in mind, Farnsworth collects and discusses the great masters of English prose Lincoln and Churchill, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine and, using their own words, proceeds to organize, illustrate, and analyze the most frequently used rhetorical devices with clarity and detail.The way we use our language to convince and cajole is based on timeless principles on repetition and variety, suspense and relief, expectation and satisfaction that have been employed by writers and speakers since the Golden Age of Greece. They can be applied with effect to the construction of simple sentences and paragraphs, or entire compositions. Here, distilled from the best examples in our language, we see those principles in actual use: for the general reader it is an indispensable guide, a highly useful reference, and a rewarding (and even entertaining) source of instruction.

    Politics. Critical Theory. Art. In 1957 a few European avant-garde groups came together to form the Situationist International. Picking up where the dadaists and surrealists had left off, the situationists challenged people's passive conditioning with carefully calculated scandals and the playful tactic of detournement. Seeking a more extreme social revolution than was dreamed of by most leftists, they developed an incisive critique of the global spectacle-commodity system and of its "Communist" pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since then although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972 situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire radical currents all over the world. The SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY, generally recognized as the most comprehensive and accurately translated collection of situationist writings in English, presents a rich variety of articles, leaflets, graffiti and internal documents, ranging from early experiments in "psychogeography" to lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and other crises and upheavals of the sixties. For this new edition the translations have all been fine-tuned and over 100 pages of new material have been added."

    He examines what really makes a caricature successful, what to look for in a face, and how to draw it. Readers also learn how to apply this skill, whether it's drawing live, theme-park-style caricatures, or creating caricature for publication work. Loaded with everything from basic theories and drawing instruction to professional tips and tricks, this book contains something for novices and experts alike. The Mad Art of Caricature! is the most comprehensive and complete how-to guide on the art of caricature ever published. With over 500 illustrations, it's the definitive guide to the art of caricature.

    Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient myths and parables in light of his theory. Provocative and inspiring, this book is a paradigm-shattering work that will transform your view of history and the mind.