Marc James Leger

David Tomas

The artists of the Black Panthers and the Zapatistas were born into a centuries-long struggle against racial capitalism and colonialism, domestic repression and international war and plunder. Not only did these two movements offer the world an enduring image of freedom and dignified rebellion, they also did so with their signature styles, putting culture and aesthetics at the forefront of political life. What is the role of revolutionary art in times of distress? When Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, accepted an invitation from the collective EDELO and the artist Rigo 23 to meet with autonomous and Indigenous and Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico they addressed just this question. Zapantera Negra is the result of their encounter. It unites the bold aesthetics, revolutionary dreams, and dignified declarations of two leading movements that redefine emancipatory politics in the twentieth and twenty-first century. A powerful elixir of hope and determination, Zapantera Negra provides an eclectic presentation of interviews, militant artwork, and original documents from these two movements' struggle for dignity and liberation.

Artistic Encounters Between Black Panthers and Zapatistas

Zapantera Negra

Vertov, Snow, Farocki: Machine Vision and the Posthuman begins with a comprehensive and original anthropological analysis of Vertov's film The Man With a Movie Camera. Tomas then explores the film's various aspects and contributions to media history and practice through detailed discussions of selected case studies. The first concerns the way Snow's La Région Centrale and De La extend and/or develops important theoretical and technical aspects of Vertov's original film, in particular those aspects that have made the film so important in the history of cinema. The linkage between Vertov's film and the works discussed in the case studies will also serve to illustrate the historical and theoretical significance of a comparative approach of this kind, and illustrate the pertinence of adopting a 'relational approach' to the history of media and its contemporary practice, an approach that is no longer focused exclusively on the technical question of the new in contemporary media practices but, in contrast, situates a work and measures its originality in historical, intermedia, and ultimately political terms.

Machine Vision and the Posthuman

Vertov, Snow, Farocki

Beyond the Image Machine: A History of Visual Technologies is an eloquent and stimulating argument for an alternative history of scientific and technological imaging systems. It explores the ways in which the technological medium through which a piece of visual art is rendered contributes significantly to the experience of the human looking at it. Through a series of studies of individual art works, David Tomas gives a fascinating and wholly original account of the relationship between visual technology and human sensory perception. Illustrated throughout, the book draws on a range of hitherto marginalised examples from the world of visual representation. In examining these art works and, it draws upon the work of such key theorists as Latour, de Certeau, Mc Luhan and Barthes. Beyond the Image Machine is an original and contribution to the study of visual culture and the technologies that mediate it. It is a book that changes the terms of the debate and redefines the discipline. Anyone studying, teaching or researching in this area will find it a rich source of ideas and inspiration.

A History of Visual Technologies

Beyond the Image Machine

Will Straw

Jody Berland

In art theory, as in cultural life generally, there has a long been tension between theory and artistic practice. The desire to resolve these tensions has been a principal impulse shaping artistic work and criticism over the last century. The last decade has seen the emergence of a broad, interdisciplinary body of theoretical work with a distinctive relationship to artistic practice, providing a common reference in artworks to the principles and vocabularies of theory. The sixteen essays in this collection were originally presented at an international conference entitled `Art as Theory / Theory and Art,' held at the University of Ottawa in late 1991. The contributors - critics, curators, and practising artists from Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia, look at the current relationships between theory and practice in the fields of art, communication, and cultural studies from a wide range of viewpoints. Areas of interest include the institutionalization of theory, theories of vision, gender theory and feminist positions, and theory in a post-colonial context. This volume answers some important new questions about the points of intersection between theory and visual art.

David Tomas

Books

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