1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910806257103321

Titolo

The machine and the ghost : technology and spiritualism in nineteenth- to twenty-first-century art and culture / / edited by Sas Mays and Neil Matheson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester, England ; ; New York, New York : , : Manchester University Press, , 2013

©2013

ISBN

1-5261-1210-8

1-5261-1211-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (251 p.)

Disciplina

700.47

Soggetti

Occultism in art

Technology and the arts

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : technologies, spiritualisms, and modernities / Sas Mays and Neil Matheson -- 'It's organisms that die, not life' : Henri Bergson, psychical research, and the contemporary uses of vitalism / Justin Sausman -- Typewriter, pianola, slate, phonograph : recording technologies and automisation / Aura Satz -- 'Miraculous constellations in real material' : spiritualist phenomena, Dada photomontage, and magic / Leigh Wilson -- Ectoplasm and photography : mediumistic performances for camera / Neil Matheson -- Invasions and fakes / Susan Hiller in conversation with Alexandra Kokoli -- Image, technology, enchantment / Marina Warner in conversation with Dan Smith -- What happens in the gaps / an interview with Suzanne Treister by Roger Luckhurst -- The ghosts of media past and present : spirit photography and contemporary art / Ben Burbridge -- From the premodern to the postmodern : mnemotechnics and the ghost of 'the folk' / Sas Mays -- Ruskin's haunted nature : art and the spectre of ecological catastrophe / Charlie Gere.

Sommario/riassunto

This stimulating new collection of essays and interviews provides a



fresh perspective of society's relationship with the spectral, the ghostly and the paranormal, viewed through our interaction with technology. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach and drawing upon case studies taken from photography, video and the visual arts, the book explores the 'hauntedness' of technologies and ways in which artists, writers and psychical researchers have produced and recycled the iconography of spiritualism and other mediumistic phenomena. The book provides innovative critical thinking on our continued fascination with the role of the paranormal and explores how artists and writers continue to draw upon this field in their work. Spanning the period from the nineteenth century up to the present, the book incorporates a series of case studies embracing such topics as landscape, spirit photography, photomontage, curation and sound works. Theoretically rich, it explores a range of approaches, from the vitalism of Henri Bergson to the 'hauntology' of Jacques Derrida. Contributors include prominent artists such as Susan Hiller, whose videos, photographic work and installations have contributed enormously to the creation of this field within the visual arts, and renowned specialists such as the writer Marina Warner. This book will appeal to a broad academic and cultural audience, particularly undergraduates interested in our culture's fascination with the paranormal, and postgraduates and specialists within the field, but also those interested in art and culture more generally.