[Air-l] Analyzing user generated multimedia content

[Denise N. Rall]

Dera Anders -

Very interesting topic here.

Kress at least mentions a grammar of visual design
which I think would be helpful (if it were possible).
After one builds the grammar, then the analysis would
be possible.

Here is an interesting little book on how to read the
visual from an art historical perspective. Don't think
that's wanted here but at least shows an insertion
point into the study of images from a cultural
perspective.

Dikovitskaya, M. (2005). Visual culture: the study of
the visual after the cultural turn. Cambridge, MA, MIT
Press.
	
Kress, with a link:
Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen (1996). Reading images:
The grammar of visual design. London, Routledge.
Here's a link to one of his newer papers.
http://www.knowledgepresentation.org/BuildingTheFuture/Kress2/Kress2.html

This went around on the list a while ago:

VIRTUAL ART
 From Illusion to Immersion
by Oliver Grau
A Leonardo Book published by MIT Press
(January 2003, ISBN 0-262-07241-6, 7 x 9, 360 pp., 89
illus)

"Equally at home in art history, media history, and
new media art, Grau situates immersive image spaces of
new media within a  rich historical landscape. A
must-read for anyone interested in new media, visual
culture, art history, cinema, and all other fields
that use virtual images." (Lev Manovich, author of The
Language of New Media)

"Dismiss Oliver Grau's new book as a German multimedia
theorist's scholarly treatise on art, and you'll miss
a great read. Underneath its stald packaging, Virtual
Art: From Illusion to Immersion puts forth the sort 
of provocative insights that any Newromancer fan can
appreciate." (WIRED, January 2003)

CONTENT: Going beyond technical and ahistorical views
of media art, Oliver Grau analyzes what is really new
in media art by focusing on recent work against the
backdrop of historic developments. Although many
people  view virtual and mixed realities as a totally
new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an
unrecognized history of immersive images. The search 
for illusionary visual space can be traced back to
antiquity. Oliver Grau  shows how virtual art fits
into the art history of illusion and immersion and
shows how each epoch used the technical means
available to produce  maximum illusion from Pompeiis
Villa dei Misteri via baroque frescoes,  panoramas,
immersive cinema to the CAVE. He describes the
metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and
relates those concepts to interactive art, interface
design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution.
Grau retells art history as media history, helping us
to understand the phenomenon of immersion beyond the
hype. 

GRAU also examines those characteristics of virtual
reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of
illusionary art and thus shows us  what is really new
in media art. His analysis draws on the work of  
contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice
Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken
Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic 
Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon
Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl
Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss.
Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space
but also a  theoretical framework for analyzing its
phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout
history and into the future. 

Quotes from the press: "A key book -- Oliver Grau's
art historical study taps into the new  virtual image
spaces." (Frankfurter Allgemeine) 
"The parallels revealed are astounding." (Sueddeutsche
Zeitung) 
Oliver Grau is a new-media art historian and lectures
at the Department of Art History, Humboldt University
in Berlin. He is a
visiting professor at the Kunstuniversity Linz and is
head of the German Science Foundation project on
Immersive Art in Berlin, also he is developing the
first international data base resource for virtual
art.

Cheers, Denise



Denise N. Rall, PhD thesis submitted, School of Environ. Science,
Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA
Tuesdays: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 or Mobile 0438 23 33 44
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/
Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK
http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html


 
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