'Third Text' has been the world's leading journal on art in the global context. Divided into sections that cover history, representation, identity, film, 'post' theory, globalization, this reader brings together classic essays by some of the best-known critics in global art and cultural studies.

It has been said that all cinema is a special effect. In this highly original examination of time in film Sean Cubitt tries to get at the root of the uncanny effect produced by images and sounds that don't quite align with reality. What is it that cinema does? Cubitt proposes a history of images in motion from a digital perspective, for a digital audience.From the viewpoint of art history, an image is discrete, still. How can a moving image--constructed from countless constituent images--even be considered an image? And where in time is an image in motion located? Cubitt traces the complementary histories of two forms of the image/motion relationship--the stillness of the image combined with the motion of the body (exemplified by what Cubitt calls the "protocinema of railway travel") and the movement of the image combined with the stillness of the body (exemplified by melodrama and the magic lantern). He argues that the magic of cinema arises from the intertwining relations between different kinds of movement, different kinds of time, and different kinds of space.He begins with a discussion of "pioneer cinema," focusing on the contributions of French cinematic pioneers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He then examines the sound cinema of the 1930s, examining film effects in works by Eisenstein, Jean Renoir, and Hollywood's RKO studio. Finally he considers what he calls "post cinema," examining the postwar development of the "spatialization" of time through slow motion, freeze-frame, and steadi-cam techniques. Students of film will find Cubitt's analyses of noncanonical films like Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as enlightening as his fresh takes on such classics as Renoir's Rules of the Game.

Product Description: "Third Text" is a journal on art in global context. Challenging received notions of art practice, art history, popular media and cultural theory, "Third Text" has never been content to accept the claims of anti-racism, multiculturalism or postcoloniality...read more

Product Description: "Third Text" is a journal on art in global context. Challenging received notions of art practice, art history, popular media and cultural theory, "Third Text" has never been content to accept the claims of anti-racism, multiculturalism or postcoloniality...read more

This insightful book is the first to critically examine the ideas of some of the key thinkers of simulation. It addresses the work of Baudrillard, Debord, Virilio and Eco, clarifying their arguments by referring to the intellectual and social worlds each emerged from distilling what is important from their discussions. The book argues for a critical and selective use of the concept of simulation. Like the idea of ideology, simulation is a political theory, but it has also become a deeply pessimistic theory of the end of history and the impossibility of positive change. Through a series of reflections on the meaning of theme parks, warfare and computer modelling, Sean Cubitt demonstrates the strengths and limitations of the simulation thesis

The aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world are investigated in this book. Sean Cubitt casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality. Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.

Product Description: Videography is an attempt to discover the conditions under which it is possible to speak, write and teach about the electronic media. It provides a materialist account of video and computer media as they are practised and used today...read more

"Timeshift" explores the powers and capabilities of video and the cultures it thrives in. Adding a new dimension to film, television and computer media, video has the potential to become a uniquely democratic medium. Sean Cubitt shows that viewers have found a new cultural relation through electronic recording, whether in video rentals, off-air recordings, music video, community, campaign or artists' videos. Focusing on the aesthetics of video, "Timeshift" tests current semiotic, postmodernist and psychoanalytic approaches in the laboratory of real-life video viewing. It goes beyond the traditional emphasis on the producer and the text to consider the roles of distributors, reviewers, exhibitors, traders, censors, technicians, engineers and viewers.