Intellect Books IQ Magazine Spring 2007 Read in Full Screen

IQ
In this issue:
Intellect Quarterly no. 5 / thinking in colour / spring 2007
media & democracy
COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART
VIDEOGAME ART
POST-SOVIET FILM
www.intellectbooks.com
jos mara rodrguez mndez
PLUS BOOK REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
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IQ
contents spring 2007
Intellect Quarterly / www.intellectbooks.com
06 Videogame Art
Challenging and Provocative
10 Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez

Troubling Postcards from the Past
Publisher/Editor Masoud Yazdani Associate Editor May Yao Sub Editor Samantha King Art Director Gabriel Solomons Intellect Ltd. PO Box 862 Bristol BS99 1DE Tel: 0117 9589910 www.intellectbooks.com
IQ / intellect quarterly
12 The Visual in Communication

Some Hidden Dimensions
ISSN 1478-7350 2007 Intellect Ltd. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the publisher. Intellect accept no responsibility for views expressed by contributors to IQ; or for unsolicted manuscripts, photographs or illustrations; or for errors in articles or advertisements.
Intellect publishes books and journals by authors and editors with original thinking they strongly believe in. Our intention is to produce books and journals that have presence, create impact and are affordable for readers. We commission regardless of whether there is an established readership for the ideas: we support our authors comprehensively in articulating their thoughts and then bring them to as wide a readership as possible. We choose authors and editors who in backing their ideas, are willing to be part of our publishing process by investing their energy and resources as needed in co-operation with us. www.intellectbooks.com
16 Televisions New Engine

The Principle of the TV Format
21 Indexed Lights
Computers and the History of Art
25 Media and Democracy

A Strange Paradox
25 Pride and Panic

Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film
Q&A 04 May Yao | 19 Graeme Harper | 26 Robert W. Lawler | 28 Book Reviews
Intellect Quarterly | 3
Q&A
iQuote Sometimes Ive believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Lewis Carroll
May Yao
An interview with Intellects book publisher
Photo Gabriel Solomons
How did you come to choose publishing as a career? Ive always been interested in the process of communicating and disseminating ideas. The publishing industry has a considerable responsibility both to inform and entertain, and I was drawn to the idea of having a career that might be able to combine culture with commerce. Publishing is a constantly evolving industry especially in the current climate of increasingly rapid technological innovation, and there are always exciting opportunities and new developments which make it a great challenge! I love the variety of work that publishing offers, as well as the satisfaction of seeing a nished book.
4 | Intellect Quarterly
What attracted you specically to join Intellect? I liked the idea of publishing on the merit of ideas rather than sales, and being able to publish books that other publishers might not be willing to take on due to the nancial risk involved. I felt that Intellect was trying to do something very different from other publishers campaigning for the author rather than producing a book or journal to ll a gap in the market. The tension between Intellects mission and commercial pressures creates a great dichotomy which is Intellects greatest challenge, but also its greatest strength! What kind of books do you publish at Intellect? We aim to publish books which
exemplify our mission as publishers of original thinking. We like to work with authors who can clearly identify with their book and are motivated to support it through all its stages of development. We have found that there is a real demand from authors and editors to get their original material published and to get their ideas heard. The focus of our publishing programme covers topics related to creative media: art, lm, television, design and international culture. Books that are multidisciplinary within our range of topics are preferred. Who are your intended authors and their readership? We publish for university and college academics and postgrads. However, an Intellect book goes beyond the specialist in a given eld to appeal to others who have a multi-disciplinary interest in the topic. Intellect does not publish textbooks aimed at undergraduates. Such books contain very little original thinking and are mostly tutorial and survey material. Intellect books are not aimed at the educated reader at large. One of our biggest editorial mistakes in the past has been to attempt to publish books simultaneously aimed at the specialist academic, the undergraduate and the general reader. However, such books rarely succeed to satisfy any of these communities, as their needs are very different. How do you differ in your editorial policy from other publishers? Our strategy is to publish authors who have new ideas, new ways of expressing their ideas, or cover new topics not established within academia. These ideas may not be appreciated by mainstream academic publishers whose focus is
on established topics along university departmental boundaries and textbooks for specic courses. Although we may give an author editorial guidance, we dont commission authors to write books for us. Overall, we have very little editorial intervention in comparison to other publishers. We represent the author rather than the reader in the editorial process, which means that the authors message is authentically articulated. However, because our books are not catered to the reader, they probably will not be as widely read. Our role is to support the author by making each book as strong and as professional as possible, while staying true to the authors voice. What stages does a book go through before it reaches the readers? The main production stages are peer review, copyediting and typesetting. The cover design, images and index must also be negotiated during the production process. As we are an academic publisher, all our books are peer-reviewed. This process is intended to ensure a level of academic quality as well as providing feedback to the author on how the book might be improved. We try to involve the author in every stage of the production process, from copyediting through to cover design. How do you market your books? Intellects primary strategy is relationship marketing, which is focused and cost-effective. Leaets and catalogues are sent directly to targeted potential readers who have an interest in our subject areas. In addition to direct mail, we use our website, e-communities, e-newsletters and e-yers to reach potential readers, as well as attending or getting involved in
May Yao
An artists career always begins tomorrow. J. Whistler
The tension between Intellects mission and commercial pressures creates a great dichotomy which is Intellects greatest challenge, but also its greatest strength!
relevant conferences and events. We also regularly participate in advertising campaigns in an attempt to widen our customer base. In addition, we have found that by introducing an authors ideas to potential readers through the publication of related articles in IQ magazine, our authors gain increased exposure and publicity, which in turn helps to increase book sales. Who are your partners and what do they do for you? Our aim is always to support our authors by bringing their ideas to as wide a readership as possible, and we continuously strive to nd new and innovative ways of achieving this. From 2007, we are pleased that our titles will be marketed and distributed by the University of Chicago Press in all regions of the world except for the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. We also have a similar arrangement with the University of New South Wales Press in Australia and New Zealand. In Europe, we work with Durnell Marketing, who represent us to booksellers in the region. We are also working relentlessly to ensure that our books are made available through the latest electronic distribution methods, as well as through the more conventional routes. We are working closely with several e-book distributors including NetLibrary, Ebrary and MyiLibrary, as well as Google Book Search and Amazon. How should authors prepare their proposals so they succeed? The best way to submit a proposal to us is by completing our author questionnaire as thoroughly as possible. The questionnaire requests information about the content and structure of the proposed book, as well as marketing information and biographic information about the author. Potential authors should bear in mind that we do not publish Ph.D. theses, although such research can, of course, be an excellent starting point for a book. We publish original material, so surveys or collections of previously published material are not for us. In essence, we are looking for authors presenting new ideas that dont yet have an established market or readership and are keen to get their ideas heard! {
books/journals/ideas... www.intellectbooks.com
Art & Design

iQuote The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it. Banksy
intellect Book Focus
Videogame Art Challenging and Provocative

By Grethe Mitchell and Andy Clarke
lthough a comparatively new medium, videogames have rapidly emerged to become an established cultural form, taking their place alongside television and lm. Yet while television and lm are now, for the most part, acceptable to all, videogames retain an air of danger and degeneracy and are frequently vilied in public debates about the state of society. Given this mix of popularity and controversy, it is inevitable that artists have looked to videogames as both their inspiration and their source material. Using the iconography of videogames in artworks is as old as videogames themselves, but a growing number of artists are using the videogames themselves as their artistic medium. Some do this through writing art videogames from scratch (such as Thompson and Craigheads Trigger Happy); others hack videogame hardware such as Game Boy consoles (for example, Paul Cataneses Super Ichthyologist Advance); yet others take existing games usually FPS (rstperson shooter) games such as Quake, Unreal or Half Life and modify these. This latter type of work, created by modifying existing games, is usually referred to as mod art and is the most visible form of videogame art. The reasons for this are easy to understand: FPS games provide the artist with a formidable set of features including a real-time 3-D ren6 | Intellect Quarterly
dering engine with equally realistic 3-D surround sound and a powerful scripting language, and the applications used to modify the games are relatively easy to master. Mod art has sometimes been described, derogatively, as parasitical as it relies on commercial videogames, but this description ignores both the practicalities and aesthetics of digital art in general. It, too, is reliant upon proprietary applications (such as Flash or Photoshop) and likewise has elements of appropriation (with or without manipulation) which although they have been around since Duchamp if not earlier have come into their own with digital technologies. Digital art presents inherent problems if judged by traditional aesthetic criteria (particularly those which emphasize originality, uniqueness and the hand of the artist). This does not mean, however, that digital art is invalid; instead, it means that the criteria of assessment need to be re-thought when applied to digital works (including videogame art). So rather than regard mod art as parasitical, we feel it is more correct to describe it as a virus that produces mutations in its host. Mod artists have found ways to subvert and modify every aspect of the game. They have placed themselves in the game (as in Feng Mengbos Q4U); they have turned games into abstract patterns (Jodis Untitled Game series) or
musical instruments (Julian Olivers QTO); they have created virtual galleries (Fuchs and Eckermanns Virtual Knowledge Space) and recreated real galleries (Bernstrup and Torssons Museum Meltdown series). But it is not just the diversity of the works produced that makes videogame art so interesting. Every example of videogame art is a liminal work as it lies by denition at the border between the commercial videogame and the artistic world. This introduces a creative and intellectual tension within the works which is often lacking in other forms of digital art production. Videogame artists routinely use their work to critique the games that they use both as medium and raw material and to provocatively
Below Escape from Woomera by Julian Oliver and others Museum Meltdown by Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson Bottom Marios Furniture (2003) by Hillary Mushkin and S. E. Barnet
Videogame Art
iQuote Whoever is able to write a book and does not, it is as if they had lost a child. Rabbi Nachman
Videogame art is becoming more widely exhibited including in major public galleries with many of the artists now having gallery representation and being collected both by major institutions and by private collectors.
question our relationship to these games. Often they will play with the viewer of the artwork inviting them to interact, but then frustrating their play or actively critiquing their reasons for playing or enjoying videogames in general. Other strategies include producing video installations which highlight the repetitiveness or vacuity of videogames (such as Brody Condons Suicide Solution or Stephen Honeggers Three Hour Donut). But videogame art is not only introspective and self-referential: a substantial number of artists have used games to comment on political and social issues, or on real-life events. Examples of this include Escape from Woomera (by Julian Oliver and others), Dead in Iraq by Joseph Delappe and Waco Resurrection (by Eddo Stern, Brody Condon and others). Just as videogames have entered the cultural mainstream, so videogame art is becoming a recognized part of the art world. Videogame art is becoming more widely exhibited including in major public galleries such as the Whitney, the Stedelijk and the SF MOMA and many of the artists involved now have gallery representation and are being collected both by major institutions and by private collectors. We anticipate that this interest will grow and that videogame art will continue to evolve whilst remaining a challenging and provocative alternative to commercial games. {
FURTHER READING
Videogames and Art

Edited by Andy Clarke & Grethe Mitchell 29.95 / $55 / ISBN 978-1-84150-142-0
FURTHER READING
The Future of Art in a Digital Age

By Mel Alexenberg 29.95 / $60 / ISBN 978-1-84150-136-9
Videogame art is a rapidly emerging genre of digital art and a ourishing area of both critical attention and academic study. A growing number of artists are appropriating the technology and iconography of videogames and their work is being shown in and collected by major art institutions worldwide. This book features interviews with many leading videogame artists, as well as with emerging gures in the eld. Others provide essays on areas such as gamesconsole hacking and politicallyoriented videogame art which draw on the insights and experience gained from their own artistic practice. There are in-depth analyses of specialist areas such as machinima and contextualizing essays which trace the history of videogame art or draw parallels between the aesthetics of videogames and other forms of art. Overall, this book provides a thorough, yet accessible, introduction to videogame art and will be of interest to all of those interested in the eld of videogames.
This book develops the thesis that the transition from premodernism to postmodernism in art of the digital age represents a paradigm shift from the Hellenistic to the Hebraic roots of Western culture. Semiotic and morphological analysis of art and visual culture demonstrate the contemporary conuence between the deep structure of Hebraic consciousness and new directions in art that arise along the interface between scientic inquiry, digital technologies, and multicultural expressions. Complementing these two analytic methodologies, alternative methodologies of kabbalah and halakhah provide postmodern methods for extending into digital age art forms. Exemplary artworks are described in the text and will be illustrated with photographs. Like the Torah itself that Alexenberg refers to regularly, the book is complex. He writes in a lively, engaging style... I found it informative, optimistic, and spiritually refreshing. ROB HARLE, LEONARDO
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Above acmipark by Julian Oliver and others
New for 2008
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Journal of Community Music
3 Numbers/Volume 1, 2008 ISSN 1752-6299 Available in Print & On-line The International Journal of Community Music is a refereed journal that publishes research articles, practical discussions, timely reviews, readers notes and special issues concerning all aspects of Community Music. The journal examines Community Music as polyphonic phenomena arising from specic geographical, social, economic, religious, cultural, and/or historic circumstances. contributors from around the globe, and encouraging a wide variety of approaches.
Journal of Writing in Creative Practice

3 Numbers/Volume 1, 2008 ISSN 1753-6421 Available in Print & On-line The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice is the ofcial publication of the WritingPAD - Writing Purposefully in Art and Design. It offers UK art and design institutions an arena in which to explore and develop the notion of thinking through writing as a parallel to visual discourse in art and design practice. It has not only brought together tutors from across the disciplines, but also from across roles: i.e. studio staff, theory staff, learning support, and learning and teaching (L&T) coordinators.
histories and cultural production as signicant forces that have shaped experiences, representations and memories of war. The journal analyses the relationship between war and culture in the twentieth century, and onwards into the twenty-rst.
Journal of Music, Technology and Education

3 Numbers/Volume 1, 2008 ISSN 1752-7066 Available in Print & On-line The Journal of Music Technology & Education aims at a wide and varied readership. This includes those not only working within primary, secondary and higher education, but also researchers, school teachers, student teachers, and other practitioners and professionals who wish to stay updated with the most recent issues and developments surrounding the inter-relationship between music technologies, teaching and learning.
Journal of Horror Studies

3 Numbers/Volume 1, 2008 ISSN 1751-6421 Available in Print & On-line The Journal of Horror Studies is the rst major refereed academic journal devoted to the study of horror, capitalizing on an increasing desire expressed amongst academics and students to pursue research of the genre across all disciplines. This exciting new journal offers an inter-disciplinary approach to the subject, bringing together
Journal of War and Culture Studies

3 Numbers/Volume 1 ISSN 1752-6272 Available in Print & On-line Interdisciplinary and international in scope, the Journal of War and Culture Studies, emphasizes cultural
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Published as a bi-monthly, full colour journal, Film International covers all aspects of film culture in a visually dynamic way. This new breed of film magazine brings together established film scholars with renowned journalists to provide an informed and animated commentary on the spectacle of world cinema and commercial cinema. Film International is a considerable contribution to lm culture. Mark Cousins, author of The Story of Film
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Theatre & Performance

iQuote I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect. Vaclav Havel
Troubling Postcards from the Past

The past may be a foreign country, as L. P. Hartley suggested in The Go-Between, but it is never far from home. By Michael Thompson
paniards have been travelling to the past obsessively and uncomfortably in recent years in search of justice, reparation, reconciliation and, above all, their own collective identity. The civil war of 1936 to 1939 resulted in a bloody annexation of national history and identity by the right-wing forces led by Francisco Franco, whose regime occupied the territory and strictly controlled access to it for almost 40 years. The transition to democracy after 1975 was founded upon a series of difcult compromises made possible by a pacto del olvido an agreement to forget not only the pain and the blame but also the fact that there were precedents for the new values of liberty and democracy in that region of the past which was the Spanish Republic. It is only recently that demands for the recuperation of historical memory have come to the forefront of political debate, public opinion and media attention, fed by the identication of large numbers of collective graves of the victims of Francoist repression, legal claims for reparations and a stream of previously untold testimonies of suffering, injustice and heroism. A bill presented by the Government in 2006 incorporating various measures intended to provide recognition and reparation to victims and redress the commemorative imbalance left over from Francoism has been ercely resisted by conservatives reluctant to cast light on the skeletons littering the landscape of the past, as well as by those who feel that the proposed legislation does not go far enough. Historians, creative writers and lmmakers, however, have for some time been rediscovering and re-mapping Spains past, including the dark corners of the civil war and the dictatorship. Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez (born in 1925) is a playwright, journalist, essayist and novelist who has insistently made Spanishness in the past and the present the core of his work. My book Performing Spanishness: History, Cultural Identity and Censorship in the Theatre of Jos Mara Ro10 | Intellect Quarterly
drguez Mndez is a comprehensive study of his theatre from the 1950s to the present, focusing particularly on his history plays and on his representations of cultural identity. He was one of the rst dramatists to challenge the Franco regimes dogmatic, chauvinistic denitions of national history and identity, proposing instead a dynamic view of collective identities emerging from the everyday social performances of popular culture in resistance to ofcial ideologies. In an essay on traditional popular culture published in 1971, Rodrguez Mndez uses the term machismo espaol to sum up this process of identity construction in a surprising but ultimately productive way that acknowledges the negative gender implications of the conventional meaning of machismo but absorbs them into a broader and more positive concept of collective creativity and rebellion. His plays show communities and individuals (men and women, straight and gay, inuential and marginalized) at various moments in Spanish history acting out the spirit of machismo espaol as a marker of community identity, an enabler of individual self-expression and a means of resistance to the ideological and
Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez was one of the rst dramatists to challenge the Franco regimes dogmatic, chauvinistic denitions of national history and identity...
Rodrguez Mndez in Barcelona / Photograph courtesy of J.M. Rodrguez Mndez
Performing Spanishness
iQuote Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre. Gail Godwin
Right Los inocentes de la Moncloa, Teatro Cmico (Madrid), January 1964 / Photograph by Manuel Martnez Muoz Far Right La marca del fuego, Real Coliseo Carlos III (San Lorenzo de El Escorial), November 1986 / Photograph by Chicho, courtesy of Centro de Documentacin Teatral, Madrid Below El pjaro solitario, CEU San Pablo (Valencia), 1998 / Photograph courtesy of J.M. Rodrguez Mndez
cultural control exercised by the state and by dominant social groups. The other side of the coin is that Rodrguez Mndez offers a bleak picture of contemporary society (since the civil war), in which the participative creativity enabled by traditional forms of popular culture has been eroded by industrialization, political control and the spread of the mass media. This outlook becomes a cynical, sometimes simplistic or reactionary, view of post-Franco Spain which has ensured that he remains as difcult and unorthodox a gure in the liberal, democratic present as he was under the dictatorship. The past in his theatre is a foreign country that is, paradoxically, more Spanish; they do things more colourfully and creatively there. Despite the fact that Rodrguez Mndezs work never explicitly expressed political opposition to Francoism, he was one of the playwrights whose career was most severely damaged by the strict censorship maintained throughout the life of the regime. His plays provide fascinating case studies of the unpredictable nature and stiing effect of censorship on theatre in Spain in the 1960s and 70s. The censors tended
to be uncertain about how to evaluate them, perceiving something of their profound cultural dissidence often puzzlingly at odds with an apparently innocuous tone or conventional form but unable to agree on exactly what made them dangerous. In a sense, Francos censors paid Rodrguez Mndez an unwelcome backhanded compliment, fearing his work to be more powerful and subversive than he could have hoped for. In the process, they repeatedly conrmed the political and cultural importance of history and the unsettling power of theatre to make the past simultaneously more foreign and more immediate. {
FURTHER READING
Performing Spanishness: History, Cultural Identity and Censorship in the Theatre of Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez
By Michael Thompson | 19.95, $40 ISBN 978-1-84150-134-5
Performing Spanishness delves into the theatre of Spanish dramatist Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez, one of the most signicant Spanish playwrights of the twentieth century and an acerbic cultural commentator. This book traces the development of Rodrguez Mndezs work from the hard times of the Franco dictatorship through the uncertainties of the transition to democracy. Rodrguez Mndezs theatre is saturated by the socially explosive concept of Spanishness, dramatized as a dazzling range of popular performances of cultural identity in various periods from the middle ages to the present. The author locates this impression in Rodrguez Mndezs interpretation of machismo espaol as a volatile, universal articulation of Spanish identity charged with the dissident voice of popular resistance to constraining political and ideological structures. The analysis of Rodrguez Mndezs work from the late 1950s to the mid-70s is enriched by detailed evidence from censors reports, providing fascinating case studies of the unpredictability of censorship under a dictatorial regime.
In a sense, Francos censors paid Rodrguez Mndez an unwelcome backhanded compliment, fearing his work to be more powerful and subversive than he could have hoped for. In the process, they repeatedly conrmed the political and cultural importance of history and the unsettling power of theatre to make the past simultaneously more foreign and more immediate.
Art & Design

iQuote The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michelangelo
The Visual in Communication

Some Hidden Dimensions. By Harry Jamieson
he visual as an agent in the communication process has grown in importance as the means or media through which it is transmitted has expanded, but it is rarely explored with the same rigour as that shown for the verbal, as, for example, in linguistics. This state of affairs could be accounted for by its apparent surface level innocence, its engagement with the senses and, thus, it appears closer to the natural order of things. In terms of measurement, its existence as analogue means that it is based upon a continuous scale, upon degrees of difference, rather than the discrete steps accorded to the digital. Even in the case of half-tones in print and electronically generated images, the digitalized is perceived perceptually as analogue, as continuous, not composed from separate elements, such as dots and pixels. When cast in the register of language, a province of the digital, the visual undergoes loss, the loss, for example, of the subtle gradations that the eye can detect in colour and words cannot explain. Likewise, there is an inability to give full expression in language to an aesthetic experience, for example, the feelings engendered when viewing mountain scenery. To these conditions we can also add the insufciency of words to express adequately the nuances of visually perceived cues in social encounters, which are echoed in lm and television. Be that as it may, on closer inspection it will be seen that a proper understanding of the implications of the visual as a medium in the communication process calls for an awareness that goes
Near Capel Curig, North Wales by B.W. Leader, Walker Art Gallery
beyond the obvious, beyond its place as a medium given to sight. It calls upon a search for connections and inuences that play a part additional to that given to the eye. Thus we are led into elds as diverse as those of, for example, psychology, semiology, information theory and aesthetics. Here we may nd a rich source of established research and writing which can be drawn upon and used to uncover the hidden dimensions that lie behind the whole enterprise that we call visual communication. At its base it is an intellectual activity, a search for relationships
and an awareness of the inuence they exert upon the observable surface of the visual in communication. While at the practical/physical level, visual media has undergone signicant developments, from print to photography, including moving images and more recently to computer-generated images, and while its uses and abuses for political and other purposes are raised in media courses, the factors at work within the individual viewer which coalesce to produce visual awareness and visual knowing are rarely brought to the fore. Generally
Visual Communication
iQuote The idea of a mass audience was really an invention of the Industrial Revolution. David Cronenberg
The power of the visual in communication relies upon its involvement with perception, the raw perception of being in the world of the senses, and, thus, it may be said that it is closer to nature than other media which are not so clearly identied.
Highway, USA
speaking, the medium itself becomes the focus of attention, the wizardry of technical innovations casts its spell, the visual assumes its pre-eminence as a carrier of illusions. The power of the visual in communication relies upon its involvement with perception, the raw perception of being in the world of the senses, and, thus, it may be said that it is closer to nature than other media which are not so clearly identied. This raises a paradox that while it carries this potential, its engagement with media introduces an arbitrary element, one that is shaped by social and cultural codes and conditioning. Taken to extremes the medium itself can appear to be reality, if only momentarily, for example the illusion of reality that lm and television is able to generate, and, likewise, the illusion of reality that static images known as trompe loeil can create. Apart from the illusions which it can generate, visual perception is, by its nature, given to seeing things in contexts; its engagement with the world is always with settings. This attribute, with its closeness to the natural state of things, provides a signicant clue not only to the way in which inference or meaning is constructed, but also to the feeling engendered by the form of the visual image, its aesthetic. In both cases it is the relationships between the parts, their spatial proximity, that provides the signicant clue to the way in which information is inferred and aesthetic sensibility is felt. However, although the viewer of images is presented with things in spatial proximity, natural in direct perception and artefactual in indirect, mediated perception, it is only an offering of parts; in both instances it calls upon the mind to fuse the parts. The media creator offers parts in juxtaposition, the viewer is called upon to integrate them. It is a dynamic act echoing visual perception itself, it is individual. The fusion that takes place becomes the meaning to that person, or
in the case of aesthetics, the feeling or emotion. Film and television in their role as image generators are perfect examples of this state of things, they are given on screens; things, people and events are portrayed in spatial contexts. The contexts may change serially, over time, as in moving images, but there is always a given or an implied relationship which the viewer has to complete from his or her repertoire of mental connections, it is a search of mind which may be conscious or subconscious. Likewise, in abstract paintings the viewer is called upon to search for relationships between parts which, when made, may evoke feelings without any necessary recourse to verbalization or conceptualization; this we refer to as an aesthetic experience. In all cases, when viewing images, static or moving, the same principle applies; the mind is called upon to perceive or search for relationships, to jump the gaps between parts, to join that which is proximal. The outcome of the search depends not only upon the motivation to carry out the task but the preparedness of the mind that is carrying out the task. The in-forming the form that the mind takes as a result of the search, and the connections it makes, is to that person the meaning or, in the case of the aesthetic, the feeling. The maker of images, moving or static, provides a spatial context in which he or she has placed (or has arranged to be placed) specic elements with the intention that, when fused, the viewer will be informed (in-formed) in the way intended. To the importance of spatial proximity we must add another term that is relevant to the study of visual communication, namely, the place of the icon. Here we move into the shaded territory of the verbal, and here the proximity factor that we saw as a spatial entity shifts to an ideational one. The ground is opened for symbolism, for the icon to be read as metaphor. Thus the relationship that
Art & Design

iQuote To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. Joseph Chilton Pearce

we discussed earlier, the one of spatial proximity, is extended to incorporate a further dimension which may be termed ideational proximity. The physicality of the spatial is replaced by the space of the mind, a search for connections in another mode, in another set, the icon acts as metaphor, standing for something else which has to be drawn from another pool present only in the mind. On the grounds put forward here, we are now in a position to posit a connection with linguistics. The spatial proximity factor and the relationships observed in images is known in linguistics as metonymy, whereas when the image is employed as icon it takes on the mantle of metaphor. The importance of the visual image in this scheme of things is that it can take upon itself, in one image, each of these roles. For example, it can display features that, by their physical proximity within a frame, suggest a particular meaning; it can arouse feelings through the arrangement of the form without concern for meaning; and, it can, as icon, represent an idea, bring to mind something which is not observed but only suggested. However, in all cases, there is a relationship issue. When employed as metonymy, the clue is found in spatial relationships, whereas when employed as metaphor, as icon, the relationship is not there before the eye but in the recesses of the mind. In the rst place, that of metonymy, there is a physical presence, in the second, that of metaphor, the presence is one of thought. In this article, some of the unobservable dimensions surrounding the visual in communication have been brought to light, it could be extended to include many others; for example, the tacit dimension, the covert visual cues which inform and govern so much of human intercourse and their employment in moving images. What becomes obvious is that the surface level of the visual hides much deeper strata. {
Above Print by Derrick Hawker, 1975 Right Sibylla Palmifera by D.G. Rosetti, Lady Lever Art Gallery
...I think the whole digital revolution has fostered a tolerence for error. In turn this tolerance is producing a generation of lazy button pushers.
Further reading
Visual Communication: More Than Meets the Eye

By Harry Jamieson | 14.95, $30 ISBN 978-1-84150-141-3
We exist in a visual culture. The importance of reading and interpreting signs has become a rapidly increasing concern in recent years. This book offers an intricate theoretical perspective regarding the study of visual communication and expands the academic arena for debate concerning the visual. Veering away from normative approaches, the author advances with original strides into new ways of understanding the visual experience. Departing from aesthetic and graphic-based directions, the book employs information and language theory to support an enquiry into the connection between perception and linguistics. In dealing with ideas, rather than solutions, the book resonates with a philosophical tenor. However, the author is effective in providing a practical basis for many of the issues discussed alongside this theoretical stance. This book is targeted at a wide range of interdisciplinary readers including media, cultural and communication studies and particularly those with interests in visual theory.
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Creative Industries Journal
3 Numbers/Volume 1 ISSN 1751-0694 Available in Print & On-line
content. Northern Lights was rst published in 2002 and acquired by Intellect in 2006 as an excellent companion to their lm studies titles.
The Creative Industries Journal studies talent and the potential for wealth creation in advertising, architecture, the art & antiques market, crafts, design, fashion, lm, interactive leisure software, music, the performing arts, publishing, television and radio. The journal provides a forum to challenge denitional assumptions, advance the social, economic, cultural, and political understanding and engagement with the creative industries at local, national and transnational levels.
The Soundtrack
important in theatre as well as in the lm and other media industries. Adaptation and the related areas of translation and intertextuality continue to have a central place in our culture with a profound resonance across our civilisation.
The Soundtrack focuses its attention on the aural elements which combine with moving images. It regards the sounds which accompany the visuals not as a combination of disparate disciplines, but as a unied and coherent entity. In addition to the scholarly contribution of academics, the journal will give voice to the development of professional practice.
Journal of Arab and Muslim Research

Northern Lights
1 Number/Volume 6 ISSN 1601-829X Available in Print & On-line
Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance

Northern Lights: Film and Media Studies Yearbook has an emphasis on lm, television and new media. The publication takes the form of a book-length anthology of articles related to a specic theme, incorporating some deviations to add diversity of
Adaptation in the form of the conversion of oral, historical or ctional narratives into stage drama has been common practice for centuries. In our own time the processes of cross-generic transformation continue to be extremely
The Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research will review unprecedented developments in Arab and Muslim media during the last ten years. The emergence of satellite TV, the internet and digital technology have dramatically changed the way audiences receive information and interact with the media. The sudden success of Al-Jazeera channel and other Arab broadcasters have altered the way the Arab world narrates itself and reports news from the region to the rest of the world.
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Media & Culture

iQuote Dont hate the media, become the media. Jello Biafra
Televisions New Engine

The Principle of the TV Format. By Albert Moran
elevision is all shook up! In the post-broadcasting present of television, new structures, nances, technologies and players dominate the global mediaspace. One of the most important of these new engines is the new worldwide system for the distribution and production of programming based on the principle of the TV format. All television programs like all other human artefacts can be variously copied, imitated, cloned, adapted, counterfeited, parodied and so on quite irrespective of what one thinks of the results. The TV format principle, then, simply increases the adaptability of a program from place to place and from time to time. It does this by systematically gathering together into a total package the set of knowledges, skills, information and other data which will make it easier to produce another version of the program. Hence, one homely way in which the international TV industry thinks about formats is as akin to cooking recipes out of which attractive and engaging concoctions can be prepared. A much more useful way of understanding the TV format is in terms of being a franchising service that producers prepare for licensees in other television territories. A
franchise from MacDonalds offers much more than tips on how to prepare hamburgers and fries. Hence, a TV program format franchise is a complex and comprehensive body of knowledge that not only offers a lot of advice on how to make a particular program but also carries signicant information and advice in such areas as nancing, programming, scheduling, promotion, marketing and so on. However, the full signicance of this extension to parts of the service industry of franchising cannot be conned to the phenomenon of worldwide circulation of such formatted programs as Big Brother, Pop Idol and Changing Rooms. Instead, the format principle has acted as Trojan Horse to two highly signicant developments in the area of international programming distribution and production. For franchising is, primarily, a means of distributing a service on a large, international scale where the franchise becomes a means of drawing a series of small geographically dispersed companies in the areas of production and transmission into relationship with a centralized body which is in the business of franchising out to nationally local companies. In turn, it is with the latter, often working in
Eddie McGuire in Australias Who Wants to be a Millionaire!
...one homely way in which the international TV industry thinks about formats is as akin to cooking recipes out of which attractive and engaging concoctions can be prepared.
conjunction with an experienced visiting producer provided by the licensor, who actually brings the German or the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars into existence. Because much of the latter processes have been templated, it is best to think of this latter set of processes as manufacturing rather than producing. Hence, a second signicant effect of the global TV format is to fracture program production into creative work on the one hand and manufacture work on the other and to also despatialize them in the process. Altogether, it is high time that this new engine of international television was better understood and investigated. {
Televisions New Engine

iQuote The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper. Thomas Jefferson
MORE BOOKS OF INTEREST n
RT and the Globalisation of Irish Television

By Farrel Corcoran / 14.95, $30 / ISBN 978-1-84150-090-4
For about 40 years, RTEs radio and television channels have played an enormous role in shaping Irish social and cultural life. As the national publicly owned and funded broadcaster, RTE is the biggest cinema, school, sports stadium, market square, performance stage, town crier and concert hall in Ireland. It sets the agenda for the national conversation that drives modern Ireland. This work is a study of the structural transformations now taking place in Irish broadcasting. The book will focus on the broadcasting section generally, but primarily on RTE, as it adjusts to a number of radical changes in the eld of forces whose impact began to accelerate in the mid-1990s. The book will take the form of a critical history of the present and an investigation of the future of broadcasting in Ireland. Its analytical framework will be situated within the broader context of contemporary European media policy and trends in the global structure of the cultural industries as they adjust to the deployment of digital compression technology, increasing conglomeration in the media industry worldwide and new regulatory regimes profoundly inuenced by the ideology of market liberalism. RTEs work is frequently shrouded in secrecy and mystique, which means that conspiracy theories abound about how it is governed and how it relates to various power centres in Irish life. This book is rmly aimed at increasing the transparency that should characterise public broadcasting and demystifying this national institution that plays such an enormous role in the cultural and political life of Ireland. There is a huge appetite for such a book because of the general high level of curiosity about the institutional life of the national broadcaster and because no seriously analytical book on RTE has appeared on the market for over twenty years.
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Understanding the Global TV Format

By Albert Moran with Justin Malbon 19.95, $40 / ISBN 978-1-84150-132-1
In this concise and well-researched study, the authors examine the global television format as an entity in itself and monitor the developmental stages from conception to distribution. The book charters the exceptional success of such shows as Big Brother and Who Wants to be a Millionaire and in turn the powerful inuence these programmes have commanded in shaping the global television industry. Focusing on the marketing of cultural demand, the TV format is shown to have evolved into a commodity blueprint, which is then imitated, marketed and sold for mass consumption. Understanding the Global TV Format addresses the different stages and issues of the broadcasting business. The book tracks the steps whereby formats are devised, developed and distributed. Major companies are proled, as are the international markets and festivals at which trade occurs.
Sensing the City through Television: Urban identities in ctional drama

By Peter Billingham / 14.95, $30 / ISBN 978-1-84150-842-9
An investigation of the ctional representations of the city in contemporary British and American television drama, assessing their political, sociological and cultural implications. The book draws on the following ve key case studies for specic and detailed analysis: Queer as Folk Armistead Maupins Tales of the City The Cops Homicide - Life on the Street Holding On. Each is discussed in terms of structure, content, characterisation and narrative, and placed within its specic ideological context. The case studies represent an interesting range of British and American cities and city sub-cultures. The author extends his analysis to investigate the intrinsic issues related to the implications of popular and high drama and culture. Featuring excerpts of exclusive interviews with Tony Garnett and members of the production team of The Cops and Tony Marchant and David Snodin of Holding On. As one of the rst substantial investigations of the city in television drama, this book reects a growing general interest in the politics of representation. It is also designed for accommodation into the very popular academic courses on drama and in lm and media studies: as a textbook and for supplementary reading.
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Media & Culture Media & Culture Film Studies
One for the Girls: The Pleasures and Practices of Reading Womens Porn ByClarissa Smith
29.95 / $55.00 ISBN 978-1-84150-164-2 Hardback, 230 x 174mm
Against the claims of the increasing sexualization of culture, one truism is constantly rehearsed that women have little taste for pornography. In One for the Girls!, a new basis for understanding womens pleasures in sexually explicit materials is offered, focusing on the production and consumption of For Women magazine. This thought-provoking book argues that theories of harm and womens subordination have deected attention away from the lived experiences and practices of pornography. The book examines the ways in which pornography has become a favoured repository of social fears and debunks the myth of the evil pornographer producing images of objectied women for troubled male viewers. By focusing on an individual publication, this book illuminates the ways in which pornography is a social product and subject to a range of institutional practices which inuence its styles and presentations.
Reclaiming the Media Edited by Bart Cammaerts and Nico Carpentier

19.95 / $40.00 ISBN 978-1-84150-163-5 Paperback, 230 x 174mm
It hardly goes uncontested anymore that media organizations play an important role in democracy. The main questions have now become whether the contemporary media conjuncture offers enough to our democracies, how their democratic investment can be deepened and how our communication rights can be expanded. This book looks at four thematic areas that structure the opportunities for democratizing (media) democracy. Section one is devoted to citizenship and the public spheres, giving special attention to the general theme of communication rights. Section two elaborates further on a notion central to communication rights, namely that of participation. Section three returns to the traditional representational role in relation to democracy and citizenship, scrutinizing and criticizing the democratic efforts of contemporary journalism. Section four moves outside of the (traditional) media system, and deals with the diversity of media and communication strategies of activists.
Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain By Steve Blandford

19.95 / $40.00 ISBN 978-1-84150-150-5 Paperback, 230 x 174mm
This book engages with ideas that are highly topical and relevant: nationalism, nationhood and national identity as well as the relationship of these to post-colonialism. However, it does so within the broad eld of drama. Examining the debates around the relationship between culture and national identity, the book documents the contributions of actual dramatists and lm-makers to the chronicling of an important historical moment. Breaking down what have been traditional barriers between theatre, lm and television studies, the text takes into consideration the very broad range of ways in which the creators of dramatic ctions are telling us stories about ourselves at a time when the idea of being British is increasingly problematic. A very wide range of material is discussed in the book, ranging from box-ofce hits such as The Full Monty to communitybased theatre in Scotland and Wales.
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Q&A
iQuote There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you its going to be a buttery. Buckminster Fuller
Practice-Led Research
Q&A with Graeme Harper, editor of The Journal of Creative Industries
Practice-led research is getting a lot of attention lately in the Arts, Film and Media around universities in Britain? What does it mean?
Thats the question on everyones lips! The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is currently investigating what the various subject communities mean by practice-led research. Subject associations from Architecture, Fine Art, Art and Design, Dance and Drama, Music and Creative Writing, among others, are considering this, and a national Steering Committee has been set up by the AHRC, and will report back in early 2007. Without preempting what the AHRC Committee and Subject Associations might say my denition would be research undertaken through creative practice, most often resulting in the production of an original piece of creative work. So practice-led research means creative practice? To a large extent. However... ! Many practice-led research projects also incorporate some record or element of critical analysis. I call this a piece of responsive critical understanding. That is, something that shows the creative practitioner understands their own practice and the practice of others, within context, and is able to respond to this and show that understanding. This is also important in a university environment because universities need to show that, through teaching and research, they have enhanced a body of knowledge, and the practitioners critical response assists in articulating that knowledge gain in such things, say, as postgraduate research degrees in lmmaking or creative writing or digital media production or drama. Doesnt that make such postgraduate degrees almost two degrees? Thats something that can happen, if the thing is done badly. Its important to see the creative practice and the critical understanding as a complete package, not as two separate things. But dont you think this kind of research can have a negative effect: that it might make creative practice academic rather than about the creating of something in its own right? Thats an interesting angle to consider. Firstly, we have to remember that Higher Education has always involved higher learning in creative practice. Always! From Platos Academy onward and elsewhere, beyond the western world, places of higher learning have been places of advanced creative practice. Secondly, we have to wonder why the explication and examination of practice in the creative industries subjects still concerns some people its as if somehow Romantic ideas about creative genius pre- Video Conference Glass Cube, CAST (Bangor) / Photo: GH
So we argue that the question should no longer be do the media cause violence? but what factors may be important in adding to the potential of the media to cause (harm/offence) among a range of factors?
Media & Culture

iQuote Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Erich Fromm
vail and are undermined by close consideration of creative practice. They dont and, anyway, theyre not! What does undermine creative practice, I believe, is a failure to give it university kudos; that is, a failure to recognize its importance in and around universities. That lack of kudos we have to work on and counter by promoting universities as places of creative teaching and creative practice research. What kinds of things have you seen going on in practice-led research? The list is not as endless as it might be! Certainly areas of thematic study: someone producing a lm or a novel or a set of paintings based on a theme, and then investigating that theme as a cultural phenomenon. Areas also of structural and form-based research: practice-led researchers attempting to evolve an established creative form and, then, investigating in their critical responses the historical context and then contemporary difculty of moving that particular form on. Also, areas of research involving the links between self and society through creative works whether new media, drama, lm, music or otherwise. Sometimes the latter focuses on looking at other individual practitioners and their contributions, modes of working, or life histories and then producing original work that reects on the links between that creative and working life and the practice-led researchers own creative work. At present what limits the range of practice-led research going on is perhaps not so much a lack of ideas. If that were the case wed be in trouble! What limits the range is a lack of a set of practiceled research denitions, theories and models in our elds and, thus, a lack of condence that such research will be supported by universities and research councils. So that is what the AHRC is currently considering? Yes. The importance of current national discussions on practice-led research cannot be overemphasized. Creative practice is a mode of engaging with the World, and it is a mode of examining the things and ideas in and around us, investigating them, exchanging ideas about them, advancing our engagement with, and understanding of, them. The range of practiceled research in Britain is already cutting edge in many ways, but as yet it is not as well recognized and internationally known as it could be. The new Creative Industries interest from governments worldwide has helped to raise questions about practiceled research that should have been asked some time ago. But thats ne we can ask them
now. And make inroads into answering them! What kind of questions? Quite basic, but fundamental, ones. Such as: where is practice-led research taking place? What activities does practice-led research cover? Who is doing practice-led research? Who nancially supports practice-led research currently at least? How is practice-led research acknowledged? Those kinds of things. Questions about the research itself, but also about its cultural, economic and societal importance. So the future of practice-led research, then? Is very exciting, for starters! Its full of possibilities around the idea of exploring ideas, subjects and themes through the production of original creative work. Fantastic possibilities! Once better acknowledgement is given to this type of activity as a way of investigating, examining and responding to questions then more opportunities arise to create collaborative work, to link up creative practitioners with critical specialists in order to investigate modes of human understanding, to support cutting-edge creative projects that might reveal more about ourselves and our World, as well as enhance the dimensions of culture. Similarly, cross-cultural work, work between arts and sciences, thoughts about technologies and their impact on creative practice. This is just a small cross section of the probable future. Much of this is happening already, but it is often poorly supported nancially, and sometimes poorly supported politically, within universities. The future is about recognizing the university as a creative place and a place of excellence in learning, and making more of the wonderful link between those two important things. {
The range of practice-led research in Britain is already cutting edge in many ways, but as yet it is not as well recognized and internationally known as it could be.
Sculpture, Centre for Advanced Software Technology (CAST) / Photo: GH
Art & Design

iQuote The world is but a canvas to the imagination. Henry David Thoreau
Indexed Lights
Text by Pierre Auboiron The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present. Wyndham Lewis
ne of the most vivid modern metaphors for light is its allegoric our streets safer, has swiftly become a powerful tool which rationalizes embodiment of electricity. Although invisible, electricity is of- and signposts the City at nightfall. At night, a city is rst announced from ten represented by brightly coloured sparks and ashes. In the the distance to an approaching traveller by its diffused lights in the sky. collective consciousness light is the true substance of electricity. On a However, owing to the development and democratization of new techcomputer, small ickering lights indicate an active hard drive or network nologies, urban lighting schemes have entered a new age and, accomconnection. Many people are familiar with the image of HAL, the computer panying this, an alternative and oneiric approach to light has emerged. which played a leading role in Stanley Kubricks lm 2001, A Space Odyssey. This has lead to a signicant break with the traditional comprehension HALs physical presence was manifested by a visual sensor: a simple lens of light in the City. lit by an inner, reddish glow. Arthur C. Clark describes HAL as a simple Two artists in particular have embraced this new approach to urban spherical lens in his epic. The red glow lighting: the French light designer Yann was Kubricks addition; it allowed him Kersal and the Japanese architect Toyo to animate HAL with an inner re giving Ito in collaboration with the engineer Kaoru Mende. Using very complex lighting HAL a disconcertingly human feel. This systems, made of sensors and computers, is directly linked with both metaphorical these artists can materialize and visualand metaphysical aspects of light: since ize environmental phenomena such as the origin of humankind, light has represented and embodied what is invisible noises, draughts, the current of a river and invisible human activity on the buildings and intangible, as well as what has disappeared. themselves. Thereby they intend to make Visual culture is here and now and its hebuildings t back into their historical and socio-geographical environment. gemony within our cities no longer needs ralph lombreglia This type of project is not exclusively to be proved. Light, being the essence of any visual communication, and new techJapanese or French. When Jonathan Speirs nologies, as prevailing information vecwas asked in 1996 to design the lighting NEW INTELLECT TITLE FUTURES PAST: tors, have both played a leading role in of the technical tower of Bridgewater Hall 30 YEARS OF ARTS COMPUTING n the hegemonic expansion of visuality in in Manchester, he decided to turn it into a the City. The proliferation of neon signs, Tower of Time. There are three different light plasma screens, and lighted shop windows are all symptomatic. The his- indexations: the interior lighting changes according to the zodiac cycle, tory of urbanism tells us that the City has always been the birthplace of while light on the exterior reects the time of year, starting with green for every paroxysm: technological, social, cultural, artistic and economic. spring, and running through yellow, red and blue, denoting each subseFrom this perspective, the City has, naturally, become the temple where quent season in a gradual wash of colour. Last but not least, lines of light all forms of visual media are not just celebrated but even over-consumed. tubing delineate the eight storeys of the building and indicate the day of Cities have become the privileged scene of this complete and radical trans- the week. This complex abstract clock obviously echoes ancient observaformation of the rhythm of human society. A new architectural approach tories like Stonehenge and the ancient desire to adjust human activity to to light has become widespread: in the course of the last few years the natural cycles. In 1997, James Turrell was commissioned to light the ofce building novelty of new architecture lies more in the way that it is illuminated than in its outer design. and computer centre for the natural gas industry, the Verbundnetz AG in Architects and town planners have always obsessively sought to master Leipzig. The building is totally self-sufcient in terms of energy due to light, but it has proved ever-elusive. The discovery of electricity and its both its own gas-fuelled power station and to a system adjusting the heatlarge-scale generation provided the rst true opportunity to push back ing and air-circulating systems. The artist decided to index his lighting to the night. From this perspective, light, which was initially used to make this autarchic technological world. The light colours vary according to the
The proper artistic response to digital technology is to embrace it as a new window on everything thats eternally human, and to use it with passion, wisdom, fearlessness and joy.
Indexed Lights
iQuote All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up. P. Picasso
temperature that the energy supplier provides. According to Turrell, Light should be a material with which we build. This suggestion echoes among light designers throughout the last third of the twentieth century. Thanks to the sensitive application of new technologies, these artists make concepts and aspects of our everyday life visible and more tangible. Thereby, they try to ght the decline in interpersonal communication in todays urban life which is one of the results of increasing visuality. In this instance, computers, associated with light, act like prostheses and compensate for our inability to comprehend our environment in its entire complexity. They materialize phenomena we can no longer perceive because we have developed our visual sense to the detriment of our other senses. Here the artists work does not deal with creating something new but with making existing things visible. Ito, Turrell, or Kersal, do not claim to produce an aesthetic experience in their work. They do not use light for its ability to mesmerize, but for its ability to embody the intan-
gible. They teach us how to look again at our direct environment by looking beyond the static, aesthetic veneer which now covers and conceals all aspects of society. Kaoru Mende commented that we are getting fewer opportunities to enjoy the sense of changing time. Part of the reason is that we have become accustomed to lighting environments which always stay the same. Thanks to this visual experience, people are becoming visually aware of the complex and highly interwoven societal system in which we live. This concurs with the desire of contemporary architects to incorporate light as a material in its own right as well as providing nocturnal visibility, when designing public buildings. From this perspective, they offer a more organic and intimate perception of their buildings by depriving them of any precise outlines and invading them with light. We may now moderate the widespread notion that computLeft and Below Le thtre-temps (1993) ers are synonymous with a cold Yann Kersal AIK and sanitized individuality. For Above La ville-euve (19911998) Yann Kersal AIK instance, when Yann Kersal or Toyo Ito tell the story of a particular building or district, they force the viewer to gaze afresh at the world. The current association of light and new technologies in large Light Festivals represents a new step in todays re-appropriation of our urban and technological environments. The City has become much more than a simple artistic subject, it is now a large-scale location for societal experimentation. It seems that the last gaps in dreams must be sought in the eye of the visual whirlwind itself, in other words, in the City itself. {
They teach us how to look again at our direct environment by looking beyond the static, aesthetic veneer which now covers and conceals all aspects of society.
Pierre Auboiron is a Ph.D. student of Contemporary Art History at Panthon-Sorbonne University in Paris. His research is concerned with light as a material in current artistic practices, such as installations, videos, projections, architecture and theatre. Drawing on his background in visual electrophysiology and his interest in visual semiotics, he is currently writing a textbook of visual physiology for Art History students.
Art & Design

iQuote You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all at. Renoir
ESTABLISHED IN 1985, Computers and the History of Art (CHArt) is an independent, international group of academics, students and professionals. CHArt looks at the transformation that Arts and Art History are undergoing through engagement with digital technology. CHArts original, largely university-based, membership was augmented over the years by members from museums and art galleries, as well as individuals involved in the management of visual and textual archives and libraries. More recently CHArt has become a forum for the exchange of ideas concerned with all aspects of visual culture. CHArt continues to promote this activity in a number of ways. CHArt publications draw from the CHArt annual, two-day conference, which focuses on topical issues and current developments in the eld. Papers and a newsletter are published online at www.chart. ac.uk. Papers also appear in the CHArt Yearbook, which has been published by Intellect Books since 2005.
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Digital Art History | Computers & the History of Art Series Vol. 1
Edited by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner 19.95, $40.00 / ISBN 978-1-84150-116-1
This collection of papers represents the variety, innovation and richness of signicant presentations made at the CHArt Conferences of 2001 and 2002. Some show new methods of teaching being employed, making clear in particular the huge advantages that IT can provide for engaging students in learning and interactive discussion. It also shows how much is to be gained from the exibility of the digital image or could be gained if the road block of copyright is nally overcome. Some papers here show how it also offers the opportunity of exploring the structure of images and dealing with the fascinating possibilities offered by digitisation for visual analysis, searching and reconstruction. Another challenging aspect covered here are the possibilities offered by digital media for new art forms. One point that emerges is that digital art is not some discreet practice, separated from other art forms. It is rather an approach that can involve all manner of association with both other art practices and with other forms of presentation and enquiry, demonstrating that we are witnessing a revolution that affects all our activities and not one that simply leads to the establishment of a new discipline to set alongside others.
Futures Past: Thirty Years of Arts Computing | Computers & the History of Art Series Vol. 2
Edited by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner 19.95, $40.00 / ISBN 978-1-84150-168-0
Eleven contributors to this volume reect upon the unprecedented ways in which digital media have been transforming art practice, study and education. The authors researchers, teachers, custodians of art collections and picture libraries, and an artist cover a wide range of issues, arguing for a more profound understanding of digital culture. With the benet of hindsight it is now possible to look at futures past and assess the disparities between earlier visions of the future and reality. Frank accounts are given of projects which had promised great advances but failed to deliver, and others that have not only survived but continue to ourish. Another account demonstrates how an individual can make a difference to students learning by applying new technologies in a very pragmatic way. One of the most exciting advancements hinted at in this volume are the ways in which communities of interest are developing shared resources and cultivating a richer use of common vocabulary and standards to transmit an abundance of knowledge and experience. A look forward to the Semantic Web promises an even wider sharing of knowledge.
Media & Culture 024 filmfeature
exclusive interview living alone iQuote All media exist to invest our lives with articial perceptions and arbitrary values. M. McLuhan
Media and Democracy A Strange Paradox

By Paolo Baldi and Uwe Hasebrink
FEW PEOPLE would disagree with the idea that broadcasting is one of the most important facilitators of the democratic process. European citizens are constantly asked to express their views and opinions on increasingly complex issues: consequently they have developed legitimate expectations regarding the broadcasting output, notably to providing the cultural resources required for a full and modern citizenship. From the Iraq conict to the European elections (including the vote on the EU Constitution); from the reforms of educational or pension funding systems to the debate on the climate or nutrition changes, European citizens need to be appropriately involved by the media. They need extensive coverage, accurate treatment and editorial independence. Beyond news, citizens expect knowledge oriented programming. The very concepts of democracy and welfare are based on such simple but vital provision of civic services. Everybody agrees on that. But if we look at the (recent) impoverishment of the television programming and in parallel at the difculties that national governments and media authorities encounter in regulating (that is, improving) the broadcasting
From the Iraq conict to the European elections... from the reforms of educational or pension funding systems to the debate on the climate or nutrition changes, European citizens need to be appropriately involved by the media.
output we discover a real paradox: a discrepancy between declared political objectives and the available television output. As a matter of fact, broadcasters (including the public service broadcasters) are probably the most reluctant institutions and here is the paradox in accepting to be accountable to society. In other sectors of activity like the nancial one social responsibility, corporate governance, accountability and transparency have recently acquired the status of serious issues to be urgently addressed: in all sectors except in what is unanimously called the most important one: the broadcasting sector. This situation has its social costs. Inferior programming cannot be considered simply as a bad show that people are not obliged to watch. The growing presence of poor programming in the European schedules prevents any other type of programming reaching viewers. Too many and too important are the sectors of the society health, employment, environment, education, etc. that are damaged by poor programming. In short, beyond the moralistic attitude that demonizes trash or cheap television, there is a more simple and urgent issue of knowledge availability. The multiplication of the digital platforms (Internet, broadband, mobile phone, etc.) does not change the nature of the problem and its political urgency. Television is still playing a central role in our lives as we are still spending an important part of our time watching what few and increasingly concentrated media corporations produce and disseminate via the classic platforms (cable, satellite and terrestrial) or the new digital ones. As a matter of fact, the broadcasting output
in all its variety of genres (news, sports, movies, cartoons, events, etc.) is still the golden content that all the platform operators in all the countries are ghting for. In short, television programming is and will be regardless the platform that we will use or the screen we will watch the primary source of information that people have at their disposal for shaping their opinions and for participating, therefore, in the democratic process. { FURTHER READING
Broadcasters and Citizens in Europe

Edited by Paolo Baldi & Uwe Hasebrink 29.95, $55 / ISBN 978-1-84150-160-4
In this book, ve authors present the main results of an extensive programme of research that was nanced by the European Commission. The study was conducted in 29 European countries and each author analyses European trends from different but complementary perspectives: from the broadcasters side (media accountability and responsibility, including the key role of Public Service Broadcasting); from the citizens side (viewers participation mechanisms) and from the regulatory side (legal instruments which protect viewers rights).
Film Studies
iQuote Everyone has a photographic memory. Some dont have lm. Unknown
Pride and Panic

By Yana Hashamova
PRIDE AND PANIC: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film examines lm images, characters and themes in order to investigate how Russia has reacted and adjusted to the expansion of western capital and culture in Russia itself. My analysis focuses generally on Russian lms produced after the collapse of the Soviet Union, paying special attention to those made during the last ve to six years a period in which the Russian lm industry began to revive and became more marketoriented, fully reecting social angst. In drawing on lm imagery, I address a number of compelling questions: How is the image of the other constructed in recent Russian lm? Is it possible to embrace a foreign culture and be simultaneously afraid of it? How does this fear affect the perception of self and other in an ever-changing identity formation? What are the fantasies and defenses that operate when national and cultural identity is in ux? This book studies Russias imagination of the West as it developed at the turn of the millennium, an imagination which in its shifting sentiments, fantasies, fears and anxieties resembles changes similar to those the adolescent undergoes in search of a more stable
Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film

and permanent identity. Russian national identity adjusts to staggering political, social, economic and cultural transformations occurring in Russia and in the global world. In this adjustment, the Russian collective imagination reacts to the western presence in Russian society and culture as it exhibits disparate attitudes that take the form of superuous and impatient relations with the (western) other, aggressive and paranoid urges, complete rejection of external (western) models, search for positive internal sources (past and culture) for identication, and a more mature and reective perception of self (Russia) and other (West) with their constructive and destructive aspects. Attempting to establish links between political ideology, psychoanalysis and cinema, I have also traced the shifting dynamics of Russias fantasy of the West as it appears in post-Soviet cinema. Thus, my cultural critique (literate in fantasy) of early 1990s lms reveals the apparently illusionary nature of this fantasy as manifested in clichd images and patriotic messages. The collapse of the Berlin Wall tempted Russian viewers with unimagined opportunities, but, as it becomes clear in the lms, these opportunities were deceptive and the fantasy of
Storozhevas The Frenchman
Barber of Siberia and Sokurovs Russian Ark turn the Russian viewers attention to Russias rich history of honor, dignity and loyalty to ones country, as well as world-class culture, and, thus, its potential for a glorious future. There are lms that testify to a more diverse discourse of anxieties and fantasies that not only produce aggression but also deate it. Peculiarities of the National Hunt in Fall and Cuckoo encourage understanding and acceptance of difference. Rogozhkin advocates agreement and friendship and resists hatred and violence. Of Freaks and Men even suggests Russias
Russia has continually shocked the world. It implemented Marxist theories the rst in the world to do so much to Marxs own disbelief in that countrys readiness for revolution.
the West remained potent. In the mid-1990s when the West became a part of Russian life, the distance between the (Russian) subject and his/her fantasy collapsed and new fantasies emerged, namely aggressive anti-western sentiments as well as admiration for Russias moral superiority (evident in Balabanovs lms). To compensate for a global traumatic experience, Russias search for a new national identity nds expressions in lms that glorify Russias uniqueness in history, art and religion. Mikhalkovs The own destructive attitudes and the way it is capable of victimizing its own ethnic others. Russias entanglement with the West also becomes apparent in lms that portray romantic relationships between Russian and western characters. Russian viewers desire to nd happiness in a union that transgresses national borders is inscribed in lms such as On Deribasovskaia, Window to Paris, The Barber of Siberia, Gods Envy, and The Frenchman. Most of these lms, however, deny the possibility of such happiness, which in
NEW INTELLECT TITLE FURTHER INFORMATION OVERLEAF n

Q&A
iQuote An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo
turn speaks of political, social and historical conditions hostile to international relationships. The desire to identify with ones country and its problems reigns over the desire to be cosmopolitan. Over the last two centuries, Russia has continually shocked the world. It implemented Marxist theories the rst in the world to do so much to Marxs own disbelief in that countrys readiness for revolution. Ready or not, the October Revolution shook the world with its attempt to liberate people from their idols (money, property and religion) and in its own way prepared the postmodern rearrangement of knowledge by questioning all traditions. This book uncovers Russias latent desires and fantasies in her relations with the West, but in spite (or because) of them, Russia has always been a fascinating place, with its mixture of globe-shaking politics and world-class culture. The future whatever it holds promises nothing less. { FURTHER READING
Loving Books and the Life of the Mind

Q&A with Robert W. Lawler
Why did you choose Intellect as your publisher? When I met Masoud Yazdani many years ago at Le Centre Mondial LInformatique in Paris, I was impressed both by his intellectual seriousness and geniality. He was very helpful as a consulting editor with Ablex before Intellect. I knew his values in regard to scholarship and supporting authors would be primary values of Intellect as well. This was an obvious choice for me. How many books have you published with Intellect and why? The two pioneering volumes of Articial Intelligence and Education were published by Ablex as was Case Study and Computing, with Kathleen Carley, Professor of Sociology at Carnegie Mellon. That book is both a defense of the Case Method in the social sciences and concrete examples of such studies that work contains ideas for data organizations and analysis that will be useful whether access is local or through the Internet. Learning and Computing was my rst book published by Intellect. It is designed to be accessible to non-specialist readers and to bring together my papers in Computing, Education, Psychology and Articial Intelligence. What is the underlying argument put forward in your books? Professionally my life has revolved around the use of case studies in exploring the nature of knowledge. My books are less like scholastic argument than trips taken, observations made and conclusions drawn. My companions on these trips are diverse heroes Ive known, ranging from humanist savants such as Susanne Langer and Piaget through scientists from Pauling and Feynman to Warren McCulloch and Minsky, and psychologists from Kurt Lewin to Robert White and, of course, the diverse polymaths Ive enjoyed working with, as different as Papert and Selfridge as well as the poets who always whisper in my ear during quiet times. Clearly books are an important part of your life. How did that happen? Where I grew up, the local library was a nearby place I could explore on my own. I remember looking into Spinozas attempt to axiomatize
When I was young, libraries were a place I could explore on my own. Books became places to seek answers to the deepest questions and, even more, places to discover good questions to ask.
Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film

By Yana Hashamova | 29.95, $55 ISBN 978-1-84150-156-7
Now available. Order from: www.intellectbooks.com
MARVIN MINSKY (LEFT) WITH ROBERT W. LAWLER IN 2005 AT MIT
Robert W. Lawler
iQuote Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order. Virginia Woolf
ethics and pursuing many other dead ends but I also encountered there Peter Vierecks book The Unadjusted Man, focused on individual freedom and the value of western civilization in providing more and various burrows of freedom in which such independent people could exist. When I was young, libraries were one such place. Books became places to seek answers to the deepest questions and, even more, places to discover good questions to ask. There, too, I found N. J. Berrills book Mans Emerging Mind, a lodestone of my intellectual journey. Ive heard your colleague Minsky is publishing a new book. Is it an important one? When I mention other thinkers to him, Minsky always asks, Whats really profound in the work of X? So its appropriate then to ask, Whats really profound in the work of Minsky? Many years ago, Marvin (Minsky, ed.) mentioned how hard it was to write academically respectable articles about his view of mind. I urged him then to write a sequel to The Society of Mind, arguing for a future suite of web pages, with all the lexicographical simplicity of structured programs, reecting in its variety the variety of aspects of mind. The aim? To create a foundation for a new generation of AI research, a foundation permitting and supporting future research efforts branching off from the proposals and challenges each page could suggest. This idea, which Marvin surely had thought of himself too, may have had a special appeal to him because it directly addressed a theme close to his heart, the importance of engaging adolescent geniuses in a discipline somewhat like mathematics, where
early creativity is most frequently found. So, future students will be able to look here for research problems and ideas. I would describe the two volumes of The Society of Mind and The Emotion Machine as a conceptual armory for attacking the kludge-like structure and function of our evolved minds. If this is more than merely a collection of popularized ideas, tell me why. The deepest root here lies in the long division between psychology and Articial Intelligence. In The Emotion Machine, the three most frequently referenced psychologists are Freud (for his structural creativity), Williams James and Aristotle. The Harvard psychologist Sheldon White suggested to me, after reading an early draft of The Emotion Machine, that Minsky should look into the ways that his view of mind was similar to that of William James. Marvin found his ideas very congenial. The prominence of Aristotle in The Emotion Machine is amusing to those of us who know of Marvins long engagement with science ction. His friend Van (A. E. Van Vogt) wrote the sci- masterpiece The World of Null-A, which followed Korzybskis argument that contemporary science shows we live in a non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian and non-Aristotelian universe (respectively in terms of both space-time and mentally coping with experience). This is appropriate to mention, because the dramatic climax of The World of Null-A focuses on the slogan the negative judgment is the peak of mentality (from A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality). But it is also deep, in pointing to a profound aspect of Minskys The
Emotion Machine its appreciation of the power of negative thinking. Every mathematician knows there is no argument so powerful as a counter-example. Life provides counterexamples to our mis-conceptions. Minsky describes internal criticism as a structural key to the adaptation and learning in an evolved nervous system, which creates and explains the very possibility of mind such as we embody. How would you summarize your appreciation of this new book? It is more than a book. I think here of a question the playwright DeVigny asks, What is a great life, if not a youthful idea made real with the focus and perseverance of the mature mind? The Emotion Machine and The Society of Mind together realize Minskys vision of a general theory of intelligence covering mind as embodied in biological and electronic machines. Minskys life work is a successful effort to re-conceive our understanding of knowledge and thinking through computationbased description of structures and functions necessary for the existence and behaviour of mind. His work is distinguished by a commitment to mechanistic descriptions that cross from the common sense of everyday experience to more exotic sciences derived from the deepest examination of reality. The Emotion Machine will become the ground for a new generation of research. This book is the nest and most accessible single work of cognitive science your audience members will encounter in their lifetimes. I certainly have a feeling for how important books have been in your life and how intertwined for you are scholarly works and the lives of
friends and the enduring affection you feel for other scholars. So we publishers have their lives in our hands, not just their books. If digital libraries come to dominate the future, as they are rapidly doing, that is certainly true. It is an awesome responsibility for men of scholarly sensibilities. But there is even more. Inasmuch as the delight I have had in such friends and their books gives rise to a deep sense of gratitude even of an indebtedness that almost amounts to obligation this is also a ground of inspiration, the source of goals and energy for future work for me and for future generations as well. Also, on the grand scale, books are the communication lines for the whole worlds life of the mind (what a grand business Intellect is in) and your commitment to work at the frontier of these modern technologies is a great service you have committed to provide for that long conversation which is the heart and soul of human culture. Weve gone on a long time, and we havent even talked about your work. Let me say simply, then, that it is ongoing and continues to be inspired, both technically and in terms of the goals Ive set, by the ideas and values of these, my heroes, as I pursue the questions voiced by John Berrill: Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going? Why am I going there? Ive made these questions my own as well, still following Robert Whites case study method, believing with Kurt Lewin that studies of individuals not only exemplify laws of psychology but embody and reveal those laws. {
FIND BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR: WWW.INTELLECTBOOKS.COM

Book Reviews
iQuote Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. Jules Renard
FILM STUDIES
Cinemas of the Other: A Personal Journey with Film-makers from the Middle East and Central Asia
By Gonul Dnmez-Colin Reviewed by Parviz Jahed
s an Iranian Ph.D. student working on the origins of the new wave in Iranian cinema, I have faced an immense lack of knowledge about the historical aspects of Iranian cinema in English resources. Whereas most of western lm critics and lm historians are focused on the recent ow of Iranian cinema and lm-makers like Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi and other newcomers, it seems that the forerunners of the modern Iranian cinema such as Ebrahim Golestan and Farrokh Ghaffari, who had a great role on the formation of new Iranian cinema, were totally ignored. In the meanwhile, except for Kiarostami, there are hardly even any talks about the other lm-makers of that generation, like Dariush Mehrjui and Bahram Bayzaee who formed the new wave of Iranian cinema before the Islamic revolution. That is why I think Gonul DnmezColins book, which provides excellent interviews with the above three Iranian lm-makers of that generation, is unique. Although the book is not limited to Iranian cinema, the interviews with Iranian lm-makers construct the main part of it. It seems that Iranian cinema was so important for DnmezColin when she refers to it as the most vibrant and challenging cinema of the Middle East.
The relative long introduction of the book shows Dnmez-Colin as a well-informed researcher familiar with the region and looking at the national cinema of the region with a particular approach. With a remarkable knowledge on the history of Iran and Iranian cinema,
She met Makhmalbaf twice, rst during the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 1995 and then at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1996. She also met Dariush Mehrjui in France where both of them served on the jury of the International Film Festival of Asian Cinema in 2005. In her interview with Bayzaee, which took place in Istanbul at the Istanbul Film Festival, Bayzaee, who is an outspoken gure in Iranian cinema, talks openly about his lms and life without any fear of the censorship or further consequences. By putting together the views of lm-makers from different generations and with a different background, Dnmez-Colin gives her reader a chance to be familiar with some new aspects of Turkish and Iranian cinema
Instead of relying on the second-hand information and resources in the West about the Other Cinema, Dnmez-Colin has tried to gather fresh information by contacting the lm-makers directly.
Dnmez-Colin has succeeded in doing some interesting and challenging interviews with Iranian lm-makers. Despite several books which were published recently on Iranian or Middle East cinema, it seems that these cinemas still remain unexplored and need to be examined precisely; lets leave alone the Central Asian cinema which is suffering from a serious lack of knowledge and investigations. Instead of relying on the secondhand information and resources in the West about the Other Cinema, Dnmez-Colin has tried to gather fresh information by contacting the lmmakers directly. She has travelled from Middle East countries to Central Asia to conduct the interviews, attending lm festivals and other lm events where she had a chance to meet the lm-makers. or other territories. Apparently there is nothing similar between Kiarostamis documentary style and Bayzaees ritual, mythical cinema or even Mehrjuis philosophical and thoughtful lms about the Iranian middle-class modern life at all. But, according to Dnmez-Colins book, what relates these lm-makers to each other, despite their different approaches towards cinema, is their ability to work under similarly hard conditions. In the current climate of Hollywood dominance, economical limitations and state censorship have jeopardized their professional position. The lm festivals and distribution systems of the West imposed their tastes and tendencies onto the national lm-makers, which culminated in a st of lms that are not interesting for the audience of their countries at all.
She also saw a very similar concern among these lm-makers from different countries regarding culture and cinema in a postmodern age: Erden Kiral and Ali Ozgenturk from Turkey, Dariush Mehrjui from Iran and Chingiz Aitmatov (who is the only novelist and scriptwriter among the interviewees) from Kyrgyzstan, lamented the loss of values in our consumer-oriented societies where intellectuals are either shunned or pushed to the margins. (p.16) Despite the fact that her approach is not academic, it at least has the potential to provide some fresh material for the academicians and lm students who are working on national cinema. Although some of her mistakes on Iranian cinema are hard to ignore, for instance, she says: the revolutionary fervour set re to more than 180 movie houses killing hundreds of people (p.10), which, I believe, is not true because when the revolutionaries wanted to burn down the cinemas they were evacuated earlier. Except for one cinema, called cinema Rex, which was burnt down and many of the people in it were killed, but no evidence had been found proving who did this, whether it was the Shahs security force or the revolutionaries. And the misspelling of the name Varouj Karim Massihi, which in the interview with Bahram Bayzaee has been written down as Baroush Karim Nasseki. (p. 36) She has also described Bayzaees The Death of Yazdgerd as a lm about the history of Islam, where as it is clearly about Iran during the verge of the Arabs invasion and is dealing with the identity of Iranians rather than history of Islam. I recommend this book to people who are interested in cinema of other cultures and of the East and all students and writers to use for reference. {
Book Reviews
iQuote Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. Cyril Connolly
ART & DESIGN
Drawing The Process

By Alexander Adams
his collection of papers, interviews and reections presented at the January 2003 Drawing The Process conference at Kingston University (and those developed from it) provides a useful resource for teachers, students and practitioners. Covering topics as diverse as Renaissance architecture, illustration, fashion design, corporate communication graphics, animation and 3-D printing, as well as personal testimonies, the book touches on much of what we think of as drawing in addition to that which we might not previously have considered drawing. The sheer diversity of subjects and styles makes for engaging reading and difcult reviewing. James Faure Walkers contention that Picasso and Matisse are overrated draughtsmen (and that Sigmar Polkes
drawings have fearless, searching energy) diminishes not Picasso and Matisse but the writer and, by extension, his argument, which is a shame because he has ideas worth considering. Unfortunately, Ruskin, being a good judge of drawing, is not one of them. Ruskins dicta The perfect way of drawing is by shade without lines and No good drawing can consist throughout of pure outline rule out Ingres to Shiele, Rembrandt to Picabia, and are pure gibberish. Walker has a witty take on the peculiarities of life-drawing conventions and he (rightly) identies Lucian Freud as a mannerist rather than a realist. Surely an article which follows What we need is a substantial Department of Drawing in a good
Only Fire Forges Iron: The Architectural Drawings of Michelangelo is an adept but tantalizingly short discussion of the relation between drawn conceptualizations of space, anatomical studies and an artists understanding of light effects and how this may have inuenced Michelangelos architecture. Will Lynch treat this area at greater length elsewhere? Russell Lowes informative paper on 3-D printing is marred by an example of doublethink common among proponents of digital technologies. It runs along the following lines: digital technologies are unfairly excluded from the hierarchies of ne art. Such conventions are hidebound and archaic. Then the volte-face: this area of digital technology should be
Drawing The Process is a useful, thoughtprovoking sourcebook, proving by turns contentious and amusing.
college [] with My own hope is that the craft-based divisions between painting, drawing and printmaking [] will continue to dissolve is undiluted provocation? It is sure to cause arguments among art students and is therefore recommended reading. Less contentious is Kevin Flynns engrossing (and judiciously illustrated) discussion of medieval English drawing. Likewise, Patrick Flynns classed as part of that eld of ne art. One moment the advocate is denigrating conventional classication as iniquitous and declaring it ripe for abolition, the next moment he is attempting to crowbar his specialty into an inappropriate (and unwelcoming) class in order to benet from a supposedly despised cachet. To broaden denitions until they are virtually meaningless does not
validate new processes, it merely makes intelligent debate impossible. Emerging technologies can be best understood by using new, discrete terms rather than by mangling established denitions. Damaging language diminishes us all and the urge to appropriate unsuitable existing classications betrays a certain timidity. If science can manage this area effectively, then why cant the visual arts? (See this reviewers article Cause for Concern, Printmaking Today, vol. 13 no. 2 for discussion on this point.) There is much more besides. Veteran illustrators George Hardie and John Vernon Lord provide personal accounts of their experiences and approaches that are both illuminating and heartening. In Discussion with Zandra Rhodes is a mixture of direct questions and paraphrased answers that might have been better recast as either a prole or a verbatim interview transcript, such as the revealing dialogue with animator Joanna Quinn included in this book. Drawing The Process is a useful, thought-provoking sourcebook, proving by turns contentious and amusing. {
Alexander Adams is an artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne. His next solo exhibition is at Oriel Ceri Richards Gallery, Swansea, January-February 2008.
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Letters
iQuote There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground. Edward Gibbon
To the editors...
Your publications are very contemporary, forward-thinking and inspiring. As a young teacher in Canada I nd many of the publications available here to lack more critical and open-minded perspectives.
Michelle Simiana, Canada ...As a former Israeli academic, and a peace activist who opposes the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, I was both shocked and disappointed to see in IQ (under Art & Design) that Mel Alexenbergs book , The Future of Art in a Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness describes the author as an artist and Professor of Art and Jewish Thought at the University of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, Israel... I would like to bring to your attention the fact that Ariel is an illegal settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories outside the so called green line, the only internationally recognized border of the state of Israel. I would like also to add that not a single country in the whole world (not even the USA, the strongest supporter of the state of Israel) recognizes the illegal settlements as part of Israel. Furthermore, the terms Judea and Samaria are used only by Jewish settlers as their chosen name for the Palestinian occupied territories in order to deny the right of the Palestinians to this land. By mistakenly (I hope) describing Ariel as part of Israel, Intellect Press not only legitimises and normalises the continuing military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories but also gives it a moral and political support. I hope that the Press will take the necessary steps to remedy this grave mistake. Yours sincerely, Professor Yosefa Loshitzky
Intellect Chairman Masoud Yazdani (left)
A Good Investment
Intellect wins prestigious Investor in People Award
In January 2006 Intellect was awarded Investors in People recognition after an assessment by the UK government sponsored Business Link organisation. The Investors in People standard was launched in 1992. It was developed to encourage and reward good practice in the training and development of staff to achieve business goals. It is a standard applied to organisations of all sizes and in all sectors. In the case of Intellect, the assessors observed that although it is a small business, it has well-developed management systems and processes. The assessors were impressed with the annual business planning cycle which allowed all staff to have an input in the future direction of the company, making staff feel empowered and trusted. It was noted that there is an inclusive approach to staff development with a no blame culture which is very productive in managing change. The company takes on recent graduates and offers an excellent apprenticeship training programme. More established staff are given free time for self-reection and research reading etc. This results in staff feeling valued, with high levels of commitment and loyalty to the business. The assessors report highlighted the companys strengths and advised on how they could be improved. Intellect is pleased with the outcome and is committed to build on the quality of its staff. A recent Impact Assessment investigated 1,600 organisations divided equally between those recognised as Investors in People and those not. Organisational changes by Investors in People organisations were twice as protable than those who were not. {
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The inaugural issue features articles on: E Beating the Drum: Canadian Print Media and the Build-up to the Invasion of Iraq E The Islamist Imaginary: Islam, Iraq, and the Projections of Empire E Media and Lobbyist Support for the US Invasion of Iraq E Reconstructing the Performance of the Iraqi Economy 1950-2006 E Towards Regional War in the Middle East? E The United States in Iraq: The Consequences of Occupation
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IQ

Intellect Quarterly no. 5 / thinking in colour / spring 2007

media & democracy

COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART

jos mara rodrguez mndez

PLUS BOOK REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Next Issue Due out Autumn 2007 / www.intellectbooks.com

Intellect Quarterly / www.intellectbooks.com

10 Jos Mara Rodrguez Mndez

12 The Visual in Communication

16 Televisions New Engine

25 Media and Democracy

25 Pride and Panic

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ISSUE 25 NOW AVAILABLE. 8 WWW.FILMINT.NU

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Troubling Postcards from the Past

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The Visual in Communication

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Visual Communication: More Than Meets the Eye

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