Download or read book Gamer Theory written by McKenzie Wark and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides? Welcome to gamespace, the world in which we live. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark contends that digital computer games are our society's emergent cultural form, a utopian version of the world as it is. Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.

Download or read book Rebetiko Worlds written by Dafni Tragaki and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-14 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rebetiko Worlds invites the reader to share the experience of rebetiko music-making in the city of Thessaloniki today. It aims at representing an ethnographic world made of diverse realities united by the melancholic sounds of rebetiko songs. Rather than a musicological account on rebetiko music, this ethnography is about the human encounters happening in certain rebetiko venues of the Ano Poli area in Thessaloniki. How do people perceive, practice, feel and imagine rebetiko song—a music tradition coming from the beginning of the 20th century—today? What are the worldviews embodied and inspired in the context of the ongoing rebetiko performances? And, how may the exploration of rebetiko revivalist culture convey understandings of broader music-cultural orientations defining contemporary Greek society? This ethnography is primarily interested in knowing contemporary rebetiko culture as a ‘lived experience’. It captures instances of the life-worlds of the people involved in the rebetiko revival, which unravel the ways local traditions are re-defined in the context of the nostalgic re-invention of ‘ethnic’ music in postcolonial times. On this level, the representation of the discourses and aesthetics associated with rebetiko performances today instigate further interpretations of local cultural trends, the visions of ‘our’ future triggered by the mythicized representations of ‘our’ past. Beyond a window to the rebetiko worlds of today, this book recounts the story of an ethnographer engaged in fieldwork ‘at home’. It aims at communicating the dynamics of reflexivity shaping the ethnographic self by proposing an understanding of the fieldwork experience as a ‘special ontology’. In this way, it reveals the various dilemmas, moments of enthusiasm and moments of despair lived in the process of research in an attempt to illuminate the poetics of the subjective cultural knowledge. Rebetiko Worlds incites the reader to share the poetics of ethnographic ‘fiction’ and interpretation and, through this, the gradual ‘making’ of the ethnomusicologist in the field.

Download or read book Secrets of Oscar winning Animation written by Olivier Cotte and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Paratextualizing Games written by Benjamin Beil and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gaming no longer only takes place as a ›closed interactive experience‹ in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced - i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games - as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

Download or read book Lou Reed s New York written by Lou Reed and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, we see Lou Reed's intuitive take on New York, the city that has been the fulcrum of his creative world for decades and with which he has become indelibly identified.

Download or read book The Old Weird Albion written by Justin Hopper and published by Bright Sparks. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman stands at the edge of a cliff, looking out to sea and the horizon. Dancers welcome the sun in a circle of stones. A dowsing road turns without warning. A church bell. Footsteps. Old Weird Albion is America writer Justin Hopper's dark love song to the English South; a poetic essay interrogating the high, haunted landscape of the South Downs Way; the memories, myths and forgotten histories from Winchester to Beachy Head. When someone disappears, when someone leaps from a cliff and is all-but-erased from memory, what traces might we find in the crumbling chalk of the cliff face; in the wind that buffets the edge of this Albion? A skewed alternative to Bill Bryson, Hopper casts himself as the outsider as he wanders the English countryside in pursuit of mystical encounters. His journey sees him joining New Age eccentrics and accidental visionaries on the hunt for crop circles and druidic stones, discussing the power of nature with ecotherapists and pagans, tracing the ruins of abandoned settlements and walking the streets of eerie suburbs. Through a startling revelation of his own family history, Hopper turns part detective, part memoirist, tracking the footsteps of his grandfather's first wife, Doris; piecing together her forgotten history.

Download or read book Crab Monsters Teenage Cavemen and Candy Stripe Nurses written by Chris Nashawaty and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Delightful . . . an engrossing oral history . . . As an enthusiastic ode to colorful, seat-of-your-pants filmmaking, this one’s hard to beat.” —Booklist (starred review) “Fantastic—a treasure.” —Stephen King Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses is an outrageously rollicking account of the life and career of Roger Corman—one of the most prolific and successful independent producers, directors, and writers of all time, and self-proclaimed king of the B movie. As told by Corman himself and graduates of “The Corman Film School,” including Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese, this comprehensive oral history takes readers behind the scenes of more than six decades of American cinema, as now-legendary directors and actors candidly unspool recollections of working with Corman, continually one-upping one another with tales of the years before their big breaks. Crab Monsters is supplemented with dozens of full-color reproductions of classic Corman movie posters; behind-the-scenes photographs and ephemera (many taken from Corman’s personal archive); and critical essays on Corman’s most daring films—including The Intruder, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Big Doll House—that make the case for Corman as an artist like no other. “This new coffee table book, brimming with outrageous stills from many of Corman’s hundreds of films, looks at the wild career of the starmaker who was largely responsible for so much of the Hollywood we know today.” —New York Post “Vividly illustrated.” —People “It includes in-depth aesthetic appreciations of ten of Corman’s movies, which, taken together, make a compelling case for Corman as an artist.” —Hollywood.com “Outrageously entertaining.” —Parade “Endlessly fascinating.” —PopMatters

Download or read book Medical Grade Music written by Steve Davis and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No-one, least of all Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi themselves, expected the six-time former World Snooker champion and a British-Iranian underground rock musician to become one of the most trusted brands in British alternative music. In their weekly radio shows and as two-thirds of The Utopia Strong, they set out to do exactly that. Part sonic memoir, part Socratic dialogue, part gonzo mission to the heart of what makes music truly psychedelic, Medical Grade Music takes us from the snooker halls of Plumstead to the wildest shores of Plymouth's '90s thrash scene in the first work of joint autobiography to trace the evolution of a life-changing friendship through the discographies of Gentle Giant, Voivod and a host of deviant psychedelic avatars.

Download or read book Rebel Music written by Hisham Aidi and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pioneering study, Hisham Aidi—an expert on globalization and social movements—takes us into the musical subcultures that have emerged among Muslim youth worldwide over the last decade. He shows how music—primarily hip-hop, but also rock, reggae, Gnawa and Andalusian—has come to express a shared Muslim consciousness in face of War on Terror policies. This remarkable phenomenon extends from the banlieues of Paris to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, from the park jams of the South Bronx to the Sufi rock bands of Pakistan. The United States and other Western governments have even tapped into these trends, using hip hop and Sufi music to de-radicalize Muslim youth abroad. Aidi situates these developments in a broader historical context, tracing longstanding connections between Islam and African-American music. Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, Rebel Music takes the pulse of a revolutionary soundtrack that spans the globe.

Download or read book Sofia Coppola written by Hannah Strong and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated critical survey of Academy Award–winning writer and director Sofia Coppola’s career, covering everything from her groundbreaking music videos through her latest films In the two decades since her first feature film was released, Sofia Coppola has created a tonally diverse, meticulously crafted, and unapologetically hyperfeminine aesthetic across a wide range of multimedia work. Her films explore untenable relationships and the euphoria and heartbreak these entail, and Coppola develops these themes deftly and with discernment across her movies and music videos. From The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette to Lost in Translation and The Beguiled, Coppola’s award-nominated filmography is also unique in how its consistent visual aesthetic is informed by and in conversation with contemporary fine art and photography. Sofia Coppola offers a rich and intimate look at the overarching stylistic and thematic components of Coppola's work. In addition to critical essays about Coppola's filmography, the book will include interviews with some of her closest collaborators, including musician Jean-Benoît Dunckel and costume designer Nancy Steiner, along with a foreword by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. It engages with her creative output while celebrating her talent as an imagemaker and storyteller. Along the way, readers meet again a cast of characters mired in the ennui of missed connections: loneliness, frustrated creativity, rebellious adolescence, and the double-edged knife of celebrity, all captured by the emotional, intimate power of the female gaze.

Download or read book The Thinking Woman written by Julienne van Loon and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-16 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While women have struggled to gain recognition in the discipline of philosophy, there is no shortage of brilliant female thinkers. What can these women teach us about ethics, politics, and the nature of existence, and how might we relate these big ideas back to the smaller everyday concerns of domestic life, work, play, love, and relationships? Australian novelist Julienne van Loon goes on a worldwide quest to answer these questions, by engaging with eight world-renowned thinkers who have deep insights on humanity and society: media scholar Laura Kipnis, novelist Siri Hustvedt, political philosopher Nancy Holmstrom, psychoanalytic theorist Julia Kristeva, domestic violence reformer Rosie Batty, peace activist Helen Caldicott, historian Marina Warner, and feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti. As she speaks to these women, she reflects on her own experiences. Combining the intimacy of a memoir with the intellectual stimulation of a theoretical text, The Thinking Woman draws novel connections between the philosophical, personal, and political. Giving readers a new appreciation for both the ethical complexities and wonder of everyday life, this book is inspiration to all thinking people.

Download or read book Alice in the Underground written by Sean Conroy and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' are world famous and have justly been loved for generations. Nonetheless, their author Lewis Carroll is viewed in some quarters with ambivalence because of rumours of his paedophilia and child abuse. The books therefore have the contradictory status of classics and yet have come to be seen too as symbols of forbidden sexuality and (since the 1960s) of drug taking.This book examines the uses and abuses of the Alice stories over the last half century. The facts (and fantasies) of Lewis Carroll / Charles Dodgson's life are examined, but the main concern is how a celibate Oxford don in holy orders came to be adopted as a symbol of transgressive sexuality and psychedelic drug use. Today, many people think that they 'know' that Dodgson was dangerously obsessed with naked little girls and imagine that his great works were written in a haze of opium smoke. The text probes the truth of these 'facts' and lays out instead how both author and creation were kidnapped by later social, political and psychiatric movements and put to work for causes they never could have anticipated.This is a book about Carroll, Dodgson and Alice, but it's also about twentieth century art, music and society. Chapters discuss artists and photographers from Graham Ovenden and Barry Burman to Marilyn Manson and cover issues such as the sexual revolution and the use of art on album sleeves.

Download or read book The Healing Power of Singing written by Emm Gryner and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vocal health tips, stories from the tour bus, and action items to improve your voice and boost your self-confidence from an award-winning musician and life coach Performing with David Bowie, surviving the murky depths of the music business, enduring a painful divorce, and making the first music video in outer space, award-winning recording artist Emm Gryner has navigated through life’s highs and lows using a secret compass: singing. Her voice, and her desire to express herself in music, has been a constant: from the early days of playing in bands while growing up in a small town, to playing arena rock shows and stadiums. Across these years and on many travels, she’s discovered the human voice to be an unlikely guide, with the power to elevate and move people closer to authentic living. This book is about that discovery: part study in the art of singing, part guide to finding one’s voice, and part memoir. This book is a must-have for anyone who knows they should be singing.

Download or read book Hairpin Bridge written by Taylor Adams and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the “full-throttle thriller” (A. J. Finn) No Exit—a riveting new psychological page-turner featuring a fierce and unforgettable heroine. Three months ago, Lena Nguyen’s estranged twin sister, Cambry, drove to a remote bridge seventy miles outside of Missoula, Montana, and jumped two hundred feet to her death. At least, that is the official police version. But Lena isn’t buying it. Now she’s come to that very bridge, driving her dead twin’s car and armed with a cassette recorder, determined to find out what really happened by interviewing the highway patrolman who allegedly discovered her sister’s body. Corporal Raymond Raycevic has agreed to meet Lena at the scene. He is sympathetic, forthright, and professional. But his story still seems a bit off. For one thing, he stopped Cambry for speeding just an hour before she supposedly leaped to her death. Then there are the sixteen attempted 911 calls from her cell phone, made in what was unfortunately a dead zone. But perhaps most troubling of all, the state trooper is referred to by name in Cambry’s final enigmatic text to her sister: Please Forgive Me. Lena will do anything to uncover the truth. But as her twin’s final hours come into focus, Lena’s search turns into a harrowing tooth-and-nail fight for her own survival—one that will test everything she thought she knew about her sister and herself...

Download or read book Best of Deep Purple written by Cecil Bolton and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Parasite written by Bong Joon Ho and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the illustrations that inspired the historic, OSCAR®-winning film's every shot in this graphic novel drawn by Director Bong Joon Ho himself. So metaphorical: With hundreds of mesmerizing illustrations, Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboardsis a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the making of one of the best films in years and a brand-new way to experience a global phenomenon. As part of his unique creative process, Director Bong Joon Ho storyboarded each shot of PARASITE prior to the filming of every scene. Accompanied by the film's dialogue, the storyboards he drew capture the story in its entirety and inspired the composition of the film's every frame and scene. Director Bong has also written a foreword and provided early concept drawings and photos from the set, which take the reader even deeper into the vision that gave rise to this stunning cinematic achievement. Director Bong's illustrations share the illuminating power of his writing and directing. The result is a gorgeous, riveting read and a fresh look at the vertiginous delights and surprises of Bong Joon Ho's deeply affecting, genre-defying story.

Download or read book How to Talk about Videogames written by Ian Bogost and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Videogames! Aren’t they the medium of the twenty-first century? The new cinema? The apotheosis of art and entertainment, the realization of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk? The final victory of interaction over passivity? No, probably not. Games are part art and part appliance, part tableau and part toaster. In How to Talk about Videogames, leading critic Ian Bogost explores this paradox more thoroughly than any other author to date. Delving into popular, familiar games like Flappy Bird, Mirror’s Edge, Mario Kart, Scribblenauts, Ms. Pac-Man, FarmVille, Candy Crush Saga, Bully, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL, and more, Bogost posits that videogames are as much like appliances as they are like art and media. We don’t watch or read games like we do films and novels and paintings, nor do we perform them like we might dance or play football or Frisbee. Rather, we do something in-between with games. Games are devices we operate, so game critique is both serious cultural currency and self-parody. It is about figuring out what it means that a game works the way it does and then treating the way it works as if it were reasonable, when we know it isn’t. Noting that the term games criticism once struck him as preposterous, Bogost observes that the idea, taken too seriously, risks balkanizing games writing from the rest of culture, severing it from the “rivers and fields” that sustain it. As essential as it is, he calls for its pursuit to unfold in this spirit: “God save us from a future of games critics, gnawing on scraps like the zombies that fester in our objects of study.”