Visual Culture

This chapter addresses books published in the field of visual culture in 2016. The chapter is divided into three sections: 1. Media of Modernism; 2. Experimental Practices; 3. Histories from the Present. The seven titles reviewed cover a chronological span of one hundred and fifty years from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and are connected in that each reflects the impact of moving image technologies on a broader cultural field. The first section follows this affect in relation to alternative historiographical frameworks (Noam M. Elcott’s Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media) and a particular artists’ oeuvre (Matthew S. Witkovsky, Carol S. Eliel, Karole P.B. Vail, Moholy-Nagy: Future Present). The second section follows this affect in relation to avant-garde/underground activity (Rosie Cooper and William Cobbing’s Boooook: The Life and Work of Bob Cobbing and Mark Webber’s Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, 1966–76). The third section follows this affect in relation to time-based media art and exhibition practices (François Bovier and Adeena May’s Cinema in the Expanded Field and Exhibiting the Moving Image: History Revisited), and interdisciplinary exchange (Erika Balsom and Hila Peleg’s Documentary Across Disciplines).

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Exhibition · Historiography · Modernism (music) · Movie theater · Relation (database) · Section (typography) · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Photography and Visual Culture