Eva Hielscher

Steven Jacobs

Anthony Kinik

The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of the city symphony, an experimental film form that presented the city as protagonist instead of mere decor. Combining experimental, documentary, and narrative practices, these films were marked by a high level of abstraction reminiscent of high-modernist experiments in painting and photography. Moreover, interwar city symphonies presented a highly fragmented, oftentimes kaleidoscopic sense of modern life, and they organized their urban-industrial images through rhythmic and associative montage that evoke musical structures. In this comprehensive volume, contributors consider the full 80 film corpus, from Manhatta and Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt to lesser-known cinematic explorations.

Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity Between the Wars

The City Symphony Phenomenon

Barbara Flückiger

Since the earliest days of cinema, fi lm has been a colorful medium and art form. More than 230 film color processes have been devised in the course of fi lm history, often in close connection with photography. In this regard, both media institutionalized numerous techniques such as hand and stencil coloring as well as printing and halftone processes. Apart from these fundamental connections in terms of the technology of color processes, fi lm and photography also share and exchange color attributions and aesthetics.0This publication highlights material aspects of color in photography and fi lm, while also investigating the relationship of historical fi lm colors and present-day photography. Works of contemporary photographers and artists who reflect on technological and culture-theoretical aspects of the material of color underline these relations. Thematic clusters focus on aesthetic and technological parallels, including fashion and identity, abstraction and experiment, politics, exoticism, and travel.0Color Mania contains a general introduction to color in film and photography (technique, materiality, aesthetics) as well as a series of short essays that take a closer look at specific aspects. An extensive image section illustrates the texts and color systems and continues the aesthetic experience of the various processes and objects in book form.00Exhibition: Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (07.09. - 24.11.2019).

Eva Hielscher

Books

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