Book Description
Networked collaborations of artists did not begin on the Internet. In this multidisciplinary look at the practice of art that takes place across a distance -- geographical, temporal, or emotional -- theorists and practitioners examine the ways that art, activism, and media fundamentally reconfigured each other in experimental networked projects of the 1970s and 1980s. By providing a context for this work -- showing that it was shaped by varying mixes of social relations, cultural strategies, and political and aesthetic concerns -- At a Distance effectively refutes the widely accepted idea that networked art is technologically determined. Doing so, it provides the historical grounding needed for a more complete understanding of today's practices of Internet art and activism and suggests the possibilities inherent in networked practice.
At a Distance traces the history and theory of such experimental art projects as Mail Art, sound and radio art, telematic art, assemblings, and Fluxus. Although the projects differed, a conceptual questioning of the "art object," combined with a political undermining of dominant art institutional practices, animated most distance art. After a section that sets this work in historical and critical perspective, the book presents artists and others involved in this art "re-viewing" their work -- including experiments in "mini-FM," telerobotics, networked psychoanalysis, and interactive book construction. Finally, the book recasts the history of networks from the perspectives of politics, aesthetics, economics, and cross-cultural analysis.
Customer Reviews:
Surprise! New media aren't about technology.......2005-06-30
At a Distance makes a convincing case for an analog prehistory of the Internet. Read this book and discover a genealogy for today's electronic culture that comes from musicians and mail artists instead of geeks and gizmos.
If the Internet's technical pedigree hails from the RAND Corporation, Berkeley, and MIT, At a Distance proves that its social wellsprings span a much wider geography of creative eruptions, from Mexico's estridentistas to Brazil's Xerofilms, from Tokyo's Mini-FM to Brisbane's InterRaves. As a network artist and critic, I fancied before I read this book that I had a pretty good handle on precursors to Internet art. But I was enlightened--and a bit overwhelmed--by the rich lode of unfamiliar history dug up by the authors of this anthology.
In fact, one of my few criticisms of the book would be that the editors seem to have trouble corralling all of these dispersed activities into a coherent historical shape. With the exception of a couple large-scale topics like Fluxus, each essay addresses a different micro-movement in isolation, without comparing or contrasting them. This may be consistent with the ethic of many of the works, as exemplified by Fluxus artist George Brecht's prescription for "a network of active points all equidistant from the center." Nevertheless, I found it hard to grasp the larger picture of new media's family tree without knowing more about the affiliations and antagonisms of its branches.
Apart from the relationships among these movements, another set of dots the reader must connect on her own lies between the examples of networked art of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s and Net art of the 1990s and 2000s. With the exception of Tilman Baumgaertel's essay--which is also the only contribution to touch on the critical precedent of Conceptual art--there are very few references to actual artworks from today's electronic networks.
These quibbles aside, At a Distance contains enough new research to plug a good number of holes in the late 20th-century art historical record, and the editors at least attempt to unite the material via some thematic generalizations--probably the most important of which is that networks are about connecting people rather than Ethernet cables. Besides, given the isolated nature of the commentaries you really don't need to read the book's pages in order anyhow. Readers inspired by John Cage's random juxtapositions may want to work backwards from the index, slicing through the book by following references to specific movements or people like Ray Johnson or Radio art.
However you approach this text, it's a great antidote to the Wired-inspired myopia that focuses on the latest gadget or trend.
predecessors for Internet communication and activist art.......2005-05-30
"The cultural convergence of art, science, and technology provides ample opportunity to challenge the very notion of how art is produced and to call into question its subject matter and its function in society...Envisoned as a catalyst for enterprise, research, and creative and scholarly experimentation, the [Leonard] book series enables diverse intellectual communities to explore common grounds of expertise." The 20 collected articles by professors, artists, curators, and writers in this book in the Leonard series from MIT press fulfill this purpose. The global communications network for organizing and reporting the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999, email art, computer-created and disseminated music, and telecommunication are among the subjects examined in exploring the new forms of art and activism with the erosion of the lines between art, communication, technology, and computer science in contemporary culture. The international group of artists known as Fluxus, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2002, is but one activist group whose aim is the "elimination of art as a special activity." The essays offer new, out-of-the-box, perspectives on different much-publicized events (such as the Seattle demonstrations) and report on representative and influential groups, activities, and individuals that are little known by general readers. The essays as a whole give an unrivaled, panoramic view of what is going on in the broad, modern-day field which has come to be known as the media. As much perspective as possible on this widely diversified, extraordinarily, almost preternaturally, vibrant, and continually evolving field is given in showing the sources and precedents of the ideas and activities. Some of these sources and precedents are surprising and intriguing. But this is what one expects from this collection of essays working toward a new, relevant way of seeing the world being shaped by the new media and technology.
Before We Linked Up We Were Even Then Linking Up.......2005-04-16
MIT Press impresses with another beautifully designed book, presented as an anthology of "precursors to art and activism on the internet." Editors Chandler and Neumark set the tone in their introduction by attempting to refute recent scholarship which finds both alpha and omega on the WWW, suggesting, no insisting, that there was indeed life before HTML. It's an interesting collection of documents, some from sources very far afield, most all of them fascinating both to look back on in nostalgia, others we watch and recall with amazement amounting to shock, for they describe experiments in the past which we are repeating again to our diminishment.
John Held, Jr., provides a succinct account of "Mail Art Exhibition," reminding us of Mail Art's utopian beginnings within the gathered contexts of Fluxus and Black Mountain experimentation (1940s, 1950s), When he recalls the "vanished borders" that Mail Art was supposed to float blithely over, we think now with bitterness of the tracking devices with which it is said we are going to now be adding to all of our overseas mail, not to mention our passports. For every innovation, comes a reduction in our personal freedom--such is true of the net as well of course with its "cookies" etc.
Melody Sumner Carnahan contirbutes a charming memoir of working with some visionary artists in the far-away, long-ago 1980s while creating Burning Books and allied artists projects. by turns her writing is hilarious, wry, witty and quite touching. Roy Ascott is a little scary recalling the psychic experiments of the 1960s, including X FILES type of parapsychology experiments, which even in the Cold War represented some kind of like minds thinking in Russia and the US. I love him meeting up with Luiz Antonio Gasparetto, a "Brazilian psyhcic who demonstrated the ability to paint four paintings, each in the style of a different 'modern master,' siumultaneously with his feet and hands." Ascott managed to film Gasparetto doing this! Wish I had access to that footage! In general the individual art object is downplayed, a characteristic of current art practice, in favor of networked and relational (often "serial") projects.
Though the book seems strangely Bay Area-cenrric, I have the suspicion this is entirely coincidental, or perhaps more than anything else it is a symptom of our propensity here to work communally and to ignore as far as possible the ego drives of the individual artist. John Bischoff's account of Mills College (Oakland) as the center for the "LEAGUE OF AUTOMATIC MUSIC COMPOSERS" is a mind-shiveringly inspiring version of the same. Funny that the book comes to us all the way from Sydney, Australia, where the two editors both work at the University of Technology there.
Book Description
Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs: Late 1960s focuses on wearable, collectible vintage clothing and accessories. The Sears catalogs provide the basis for a comprehensive study of the fashions of this period. The descriptions drawn from the catalogs are detailed and accurate in order to help collectors understand the styles of the period, as well as the textiles in use. Although Sears shows apparel for every market, from glamorous to practical, Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs: Late 1960s showcases the most collectible, trendy garments and accessories from the period: stretch pants, mini skirts, turtleneck tunics, tank tops, pantskirts, pantjumpers, flared-leg pants, A-line shifts, knee-high boots, and belted swimwear. There are chapters on "Gowns, Dresses, Shifts, Skirts, and Shirts," "Pants, Pantjumpers, Pantskirts, and Tunics," "Coats," "Swimsuits, Play Suits, and Beach Cover-ups," "Underwear and Nightwear," and "Accessories." The book focuses on women's fashions, but includes examples of collectible men's and children's fashions of the period.
Customer Reviews:
Revisiting my past!.......2000-11-21
Here are pictures of all the clothes I used to wear to junior high school back in the good old days! We didn't have shopping malls yet where I grew up, and this is how I got my clothes for school. It brings back many memories. Now the Sears catalog is gone, too.
Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs : Late 1960s.......2000-04-22
This book is grea! The layout is perfect and as I work with a Costume Designer it helped me do my job so well. It captures the 60's in it's escense and also it's a beautiful book.
Book Description
When you can float through the air and conjure up monsters out of ectoplasm, you're bound to attract attention. Come stare at Ms. Serenity Rose, local witch, as she spends the day dodging goblins, goths, and a bad case of social phobia in the spookiest lil town in America. A Booklist Starred Review - Serenity "Sera" Rose tries to live a quiet life. She has her friends Tess and Kelton and her art. For the most part, she is happily sullen among Crestfallen's gothy not-quite-subculture. But the fact that she is a witch makes her dreams of anonymity seem out of reach. It's bad enough trying to avoid becoming a tourist attraction and dodging the goth wannabes, but when vampires start turning up and rock star-witch Rivet Hed's creepy manager wants something from her, she knows her life won't be quiet much longer. There are a lot of words to read in Serenity Rose, but in the first collection of it, they're all worthwhile. Aaron A. (for Alexovich) isn't afraid to take time to develop a plot, which means there is also time to get to know the characters and appreciate the full-on snarky sarcasm of his humor. While the setting is an urban gothic subculture, plenty of potshots are taken at the cliches of cool among its inhabitants. A.'s artwork is beautiful, a sort of dark homage to animation genius Chuck Jones with a splash of Ameri-manga for good measure. Even in shades of gray rather than color, it has enough attitude to stop a truck, making it a nice contrast to all those stuffy superheroes on the graphic-novel shelves.
Customer Reviews:
An underrated piece of graphic fiction........2006-01-14
Serenity Rose is of obvious interest to anyone looking to fill the need for similar graphic novel works in the vein of Jhonen Vasquez's "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" or "Squee!", which seems to be an extensive portion of SLG (and other publishers') interests in the wake of Vasquez's unfortunate post-Invader Zim creative paralysis.
But enough about comparisons, this book is much better than to simply get lost in the wake of unfortunately stifling Jhonen Vasquez comparisons.
Serenity Rose has a uniquely strong density of emotion and intellectual content. Whereas other "goth" niche comics (Gloom Cookie, Nightmares and Fairy Tales, Courtney Crumin, and others) chose to stick to a more poetic narrative feel, Serenity Rose is possibly the only "goth" comic to make its storytelling idiom centered around a verite' description of the characters and their circumstances. There is a continuous narrative thread throughout the issues, but the drive of the story is through situational and character exploration. The magic of this story is in the details, not so much in the need to get simply from point A to point B in a storytelling sense.
The setting of Crestfallen gets a significant amount of exploration throughout the story. This isn't merely an intriguing exploration of Serenity Rose's universe, it helps maintain the verite' feel of the comic. The satirical sense of humor floats in the details, such as the Ogre pile, quirky gnomes that are occasionally used as meta-narrative (not merely comic relief) and extended, nuanced ideological explorations through characters like Vicious Whisper.
Aaron A. doesn't just puppet the gothic content of his book, he really understands what the lives of these people involve. He buys into his book's image enough to keep some sensibility about it--certainly he does highlight the hilarity of certain aspects of gothic culture, but it doesn't permeate the narrative of the book. At the center of Aaron A's book is a very warm heart, and it's a shame that this book hasn't achieved the more significant market interest it deserves.
Aaron A. and Serenity Rose.......2005-11-09
The writer/artist, Aaron Alexovich, is nothing short of incredible. His writing is fantastic, his composition is stunning, and his art is an exquisite solution of dark, cute, astoundingly intricate, and just plain beautiful. The use of grey tones in the book will make you forget that it's not in color, and to think that Aaron A. used a regular mechanical pencil.
Serenity Rose is a "20-whatever" aged witch, living in the creepy little town of Crestfallen. She tries to have a nor mal, quiet life, but try that when everyone know's you and you're one of the only 52 witches in the world.
An amazing piece of art and literature, Serenity Rose Vol. 1 should be on the shelf of everyone who has any sort of appreciation for graphic novels. Buy it. Buy it now.
...
Now!
an amazing achievement.......2005-08-07
By the time I started reading Serenity Rose, I was already deeply in love with the works of Jhonen Vasquez (the Slave Labor artist/writer who wrote such benchmark "goth" works as "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac"). I'd also pretty much determined that JTHM was my favorite comic of all time. And while I read some pretty grand titles since (including Watchmen, Preacher, 100 Bullets, and the Sandman series), I've never had anything rival it...except for this.
At first, it just resembles your classic Slave Labor title. Spookiness abounds in the small town of Crestfallen, home of one of America's five true witches, Miss Serenity Rose. Extraordinary ethereal powers aside, she's a pretty normal girl. More than a bit antisocial, and really poured into her hobbies (which includes a perpetual stream of disdain for those around her), the only real connection she seems to have at all is a fairly awkward friendship with her childhood friend, Tess.
In her typical shrill manner, Tess manages to drag Sera to a concert, where after an embarrassing opening act, the headliner's lead singer overdoses on a fad drug called "curse" sending him into a monstrous rage that only Sera can end. From here, the reader gets a little more insight, meeting her fellow witches, all of whom seem to be using their powers for some real purpose, and through one way or another have made their lives extraordinary...something Sera's life definitely isn't. And as Sera makes her way around, she can't help but question every facet of her life.
And this is where Serenity Rose excels. Of course, the comic has lots of inside jokes and hilarious pop culture references. But much like the fourth issue of JTHM, the fourth issue of S. Rose is what really exposes the depth of the main character. Sera is no longer just a little goth girl, but a deeply nuanced individual with real needs and desires AKA she's no different than any of us. When Tess finally calls Sera out, and Sera responds with a full-page rant...those two pages alone are worth the price of this book. It was at this point that I began to really read what I was reading.
This trade is volume 1 and contains the first five issues of the series. For some reason, SLG is no longer publishing individual issues of the comic, and I'm pretty sure they're just going to release volume 2 when they're ready to add more to the series. I definitely find this disappointing, since December was the last time I read a new storyline, but I'd be willing to wait another year for Volume 2 if I have to. I don't know anything about Aaron Alexovich (writer/artist), but from what I've seen, he's a hell of a talent, and I can't wait to see where Miss Rose ends up.
BEST COMIC BOOK EVER!.......2005-07-09
Serenity Rose is a phenomenal comic book chock full of vampires, cute lil goblins, ectoplasm and WITCHCRAFT OF COURSE! My mom found this book for me in a local comic book store and the second i saw it, it was love at first sight. The "gothic" style artwork and the clash of different character personalities as well as their various tendencies and witticisms make the story come alive with a dark humor that you will want to experience again and again!
wow, thats spooky. .......2005-06-13
After reading some of it off the site and accidently finding the book I come to the conclusion that is one of the cooler comic like things I have read. It's full of random little blurbs and there is a plot but it tends to go around that in curved patterns.
Serenity rose is a really cool book, to read over and over again.
blue banged and goggled, witch powers, its about extrodianary people in normal day happenings.
not the other way around.
Book Description
First published in 1924, "Augustus Carp Esq." is a spoof autobiography: a deadpan comic account of a climb to the heights of mediocrity by a humorless, pious oaf.
Customer Reviews:
caution... this book ellicits laughter, even in public.......2003-08-12
I have never been guilty of laughing out loud when reading a book, until now. Augustus Carp is simply irresistible, and the more supercilious and flawed his character is shown to be (through his own writings!), the funnier it gets; though not unaccompanied by a certain nervous introspection... after all, who among us is without some self-deluded failings? So it is humor (humour) with an edge, as is characteristic of all the best British humor. Like a good martini, it is dry and leaves you stirred, and perhaps chuckling a little helplessly...
Snobs to the fore.......2001-12-09
This is the end of the Victorian age and the nineteenth century. Augustus Carp tells us about his life as a young man, brought up in a middle-class family. A nattering nabob, a supreme snob, an obnoxious boor, and a prig given to hourly flatulence. He spends his time correcting others to the point of suing them, while he himself is always right and, of course, superior to any human being. He keeps his mother as a slave and destroys those around him. Can the comeuppance be lurking in the future?
Find out by reading this very, very funny book. This is a fabulous satire of a morally uptight generation,
A lost classic.......2001-10-22
I first became aware of this lost classic through Frank Muir's anthology of comic prose. I was lucky enough to find a copy in my local library and, following several hysteria-plagued re-readings, I decided to buy a second-hand copy. This book inspires devotees. I enquired after many newly advertised second-hand copies of the book online, only to be told by dealers that the book had been sold immediately on being placed online, and that, moreover, I was the sixth or seventh person to have asked after it. (I did manage to snare a copy eventually.) So Prion is doing the reading public a great service in rescuing the book from its undeserved out-of-print limbo. Augustus Carp is an anti-hero who can easily stand comparison with Waugh's greatest snobs, and as a bore and a prig he could almost have sprung from the mind of Patrick Hamilton (another neglected genius). Anyone who has ever felt that the Church is rather too keen to deny basic pleasures will find the book's feverish satire a tonic; loathers of hypocrisy will put it by their bedside tables; those who love to laugh will buy four or five copies for friends. It's that good.
Find it, read it, laugh at it.......2001-07-23
I stumbled upon this book years ago and have read it three times. I hope others will stumble upon it too because Augustus Carp is one of the funniest books I've ever read. It is an anonymously written British satire pitched perfectly, a book that makes fun of religious hypocrisy without ever showing any signs of strain or going overboard - no mean feat given that the tale's narrator (Mr. Augustus Carp) is also the focal point of the humor. The book also contains some wonderful drawings of it characters and, even, some wonderfully pompous footnoting. Find it, read it, laugh at it.
A gem of British humour.......2000-04-02
It is rather sad to find this little gem -- masterpiece, even -- of British humour to be out of print. Written in 1924 by an an author who remained unknown until a couple of decades ago, it is a worthy successor to "The Diary of a Nobody". For the cognoscente certain phrases have entered the vocabulary: "Better 'tus than 'tin" and "The aunt who stood with my mother's mother at the foot of the stairs". Augustus Carp, the unflinching opponent of sin in all its manifestations, is a Really Good Man and a true Xtian.
Book Description
It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed -- then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world.
For some time -- I am now forty-seven -- I had been feeling this with increasing urgency. And when not only my wife and her four sisters, but the vicar of my parish, the Reverend Simeon Whey, approached me with the same suggestion, I felt that delay would amount to sin. That sin, by many persons, is now lightly regarded, I am, of course, only too well aware. That its very existence is denied by others is a fact equally familiar to me. But I am not one of them. On every ground I am an unflinching opponent of sin. I have continually rebuked it in others. I have strictly refrained from it in myself. And for that reason alone I have deemed it incumbent upon me to issue this volume.
Average customer rating:
|
Augustus Carp, Esq.
Martin Brashford
Manufacturer: Academy Chicago Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
ASIN: 0851152406 |
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