TV Museum takes as its subject the complex and shifting relationship between television and contemporary art. Informed by theories and histories of art and media since the 1950s, this book charts the changing status of television as cultural form, object of critique and site of artistic invention. Through close readings of artworks, exhibitions and institutional practices in diverse cultural and political contexts, Connolly demonstrates television’s continued importance for contemporary artists and curators seeking to question the formation and future of the public sphere. Paying particular attention to developments since the early 2000s, TV Museum includes chapters on exhibiting television as object; soaps, sitcoms and symbolic value in art and television; reality TV and the social turn in art; TV archives, memory, and media events; broadcasting and the public realm; TV talk shows and curatorial practice; art workers and TV production cultures.

Supernatural premiered on September 14, 2005, on what was then called the WB Network. Creator Eric Kripke was inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, putting his heroes, brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, in a big black ’67 Impala and sending them in search of the urban legends that fascinated him. The series attracted a passionate fan base from the start and was described as a 'cultural attractor' that tapped into the zeitgeist of the moment, reflecting global fears of terrorism with its themes of fighting unseen evil. The chemistry between the lead actors, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, contributed to the show’s initial success, and Supernatural found its niche when it combined demon-hunting adventures with a powerful relationship drama that explored the intense, complicated bond between the brothers. Supernatural is as much a story of familial ties, love and loyalty as it is of 'saving people, hunting things.'

Fan Phenomena: Supernatural explores the ongoing fascination and passion for a show that developed a relationship with fans through eight seasons and continues to have an impact on fan culture to the present day. Essays here explore the rich dynamic that has developed between fans and producers, actors, writers, directors, the show creator and show-runners through online interactions on Twitter and Facebook, face-to-face exchanges at conventions and representations of fandom within the show’s meta-episodes. Contributors also explore gender and sexuality in the show and in fan art; the visual dynamics, cinematography and symbolism in the episodes as well as the fan videos they inspire; and the culture of influence, learning and teaching in the series.

 

In The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age, artist and educator Mel Alexenberg offers a vision of a postdigital future that reveals a paradigm shift from the Hellenistic to the Hebraic roots of Western culture. He ventures beyond the digital to explore postdigital perspectives rising from creative encounters among art, science, technology, and human consciousness. The interrelationships between these perspectives demonstrate the confluence between postdigital art and the dynamic, Jewish structure of consciousness. Alexenberg’s pioneering artwork––a fusion of spiritual and technological realms––exemplifies the theoretical thesis of this investigation into interactive and collaborative forms that imaginatively envisages the vast potential of art in a postdigital future.   

With Nature provides new ways to think about our relationship with nature in today’s technologically mediated culture. Warwick Mules makes original connections with German critical philosophy and French poststructuralism in order to examine the effects of technology on our interactions with the natural world. In so doing, the author proposes a new way of thinking about the eco-self in terms of a careful sharing of the world with both human and non-human beings. With Nature ultimately argues for a poetics of everyday life that affirms the place of the human-nature relation as a creative and productive site for ecological self-renewal and redirection.

Aside from the occasional nod to epaulettes or use of camouflage, war and fashion seem to be strange partners. Not so, argue the contributors to this book, who connect military industrial practices as well as military dress to textile and clothing in new ways. For instance, the book includes a series of commentaries on the impact of military dress in the airline industry, in illustrated wartime comics and even considers today’s muscled soldier’s body as a new type of uniform. Elsewhere, the effects of conquest introduce a new set of postcolonial aesthetics as military and colonial regimes disrupt local textile production and garment making. In another chapter, it is argued that textiles and fashion are important because they reflect a core practice, one that bridges textile artists and designers in an expressive, creative and deeply physical way to matters of cultural significance. And the book concludes by calling the very mode of 'military chic' into ethical question.

The premier text to illustrate the impact of war on textiles, bodies, costume, art and design, Fashion & War in Popular Culture will be warmly welcomed by scholars of fashion design and theory, historians of fashion and those interested in theories of warfare and military science.

 

This book is framed by theories of globalization and delves into the development of a new global media culture. It also deals with theories of documentary genres and their social and cultural functions. Engaging with Reality contributes to a new and broader understanding of our changing, contemporary media culture and offers a comparative, transnational analysis of the forms and functions of documentary in a new global and digital media culture.

With the birth of film came the birth of a revolutionary visual language. This new, unique vocabulary - the cut, the fade, the dissolve, the pan and the new idea of movement - gave not only artists but also architects a completely new way to think about and describe the visual. The Architecture of the Screen examines the relationship between the visual language of film and the onscreen perception of space and architectural design, revealing how film’s visual vocabulary influenced architecture in the twentieth century and continues to influence it today. Graham Cairns draws on film reviews, architectural plans and theoretical texts to illustrate the unusual and fascinating relationship between the worlds of filmmaking and architecture.

 

The degree to which Cognitive Science can aspire to be the Science of the Mind is an ongoing debate. This highly influential book, published as a Second Edition, proposes a new approach to issues of the mind and of consciousness, drawing together themes from Philosophy right through to Artificial Intelligence.

Proposing an integrated approach to the science of mind, the book has been revised to meet the newest developments of its rapidly changing field. The author incorporates ideas from across the board into a new theory of consciousness, selfhood and cognitive development.

The first part presents clear introductions to the disciplines that are traditionally seen to constitute Cognitive Science - Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence and Ethnology. The second section focuses on the nature of symbol systems, detailing theories of consciousness and selfhood.

The two strands are woven together into a new theory of cognition and its development, and the author concludes that a science that fully attempts to treat cognition must remain au fait with the findings from all other approaches to the study of the mind, from the purely behaviourist to the purely experiential. As the Second Edition is published, The Search for Mind is unquestionably among the most acclaimed accounts of the area written by a single author. 

Since Marcel Duchamp created his 'readymades' a century ago – most famously christening a urinal as a fountain – the practice of incorporating commodity objects into art has become ever more pervasive. Uncommon Goods traces one particularly important aspect of that progression: the shift in artistic concern toward the hidden ethical dimensions of global commerce. Jaimey Hamilton Faris discusses the work of, among many others, Ai Weiwei, Cory Arcangel, Thomas Hirschhorn and Santiago Sierra, reading their artistic explorations as overlapping with debates about how common goods hold us and our world in common. The use of readymade now registers concerns about international migrant labor, outsourced manufacturing, access to natural resources, intellectual copyright, and the commoditization of virtual space. In each chapter, Hamilton Faris introduces artists who exemplify the focus of readymade aesthetics on aspects of global commodity culture, including consumption, marketing, bureaucracy, labour and community. She explores how materially intensive, 'uncommon' aesthetic situations can offer moments to meditate on the kinds of objects, experiences and values we ostensibly share in the age of globalization. The resulting volume will be an important contribution to scholarship on ready-made art as well as to the study of materiality, embodiment and globalization.

Manifesto Now! maps the current rebirth of the manifesto as it appears at the crossroads of philosophy, performance and politics. While the manifesto has been central to histories of modernity and modernism, the editors contend that its contemporary resurgence demands a renewed interrogation of its form, its content and its uses. Featuring contributions from trailblazing artists, scholars and activists currently working in the United States, the United Kingdom and Finland, this volume will be indispensable to scholars across the disciplines. Filled with examples of manifestos and critical thinking about manifestos, it contains a wide variety of critical methodologies that students can analyse, deconstruct and emulate.