Download or read book The Vatican to Vegas written by Norman M. Klein and published by . This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a journey through the lavish special-effects environments from 1550 to the present. It indicates how the Renaissance and early Baroque artists pioneered the interactive, the cinematic and even the digital.
Download or read book Vatican to Vegas written by Norman M. Klein and published by . This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guided tour through the magical world of illusions, this book takes the reader from lavish Baroque fantasies of the 17th cent. to the Electronic Baroque of today. We journey from architectural illusion in 1580 to the ¿trompe l¿oeil¿ of Las Vegas casinos. Klein takes us from Piranesi¿s labyrinths to the mazes of new computer software, from scrolling panoramas that staged the horror at Gettysburg to the special effects on cinema screens today. The real power in this world of fakery rests with whoever controls the illusion -- be it the pope, the pres., the imagineer, the designer, or the studio exec. ¿Special effects are not only a barometer for politics, myths of identity, and econ. relations, but also a parallel for understanding where our civilization may be headed next.¿ Ill.
Download or read book Vatican City Las Vegas written by F. Rex and published by ICCC Media. This book was released on 2008-04-01 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a Las Vegas casino fashioned after the Vatican, author Thomas Carlyle is as good as dead. Swilling a mortal dose of alcohol, he will perish among the grotesque patrons of Vatican City, Las Vegas as they pursue an elusive jackpot token called The Godhead. Carlyle unwittingly bumbles through corporate mafia intrigue as Vatican City's management, the Medici Crime Family, plots to enslave all the casino patrons to dreams of eternal wealth. As the night deepens and the forces of Vegas evil threaten to rob human existence of all nonmaterial significance, Carlyle dreams a final reckoning that will bring the Medici Crime Family and all of Vatican City's managerial clergy to justice in a shocking cinematic twist.
Download or read book The Themed Space written by Scott A. Lukas and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nation and Self is the first edited collection focused on the subject of the themed space. Twelve authors address a range of themed spaces, including restaurants, casinos, theme parks and other spaces like airports and virtual reality ones. The text is organized into four sections-theming as authenticity, theming as nation, theming as person and theming as mind.
Download or read book The Vatican Knights written by Rick Jones and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-06-11 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While on a visit to the United States, Pope Pius XIII is kidnapped by a terrorist cell calling itself the Soldiers of Islam. If the United States and its allies do not meet their demands, they will execute the pope. So when FBI Specialist Shari Cohen is called to duty to track down the terrorist cell responsible, she learns that she is not alone. Deep behind the Vatican walls a secret order dispatches a clandestine op group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. Their mission: bring the pope back alive. As Cohen and the Knights work in tandem they uncover a White House conspiracy involving high-ranking members on Capitol Hill. When she begins to get too close to the truth about the pope's kidnapping, she becomes the target of indigenous forces trying to keep the conspiracy safe. However, in order to get to her they must go through the Vatican Knights.
Download or read book Immersion and Distance written by Werner Wolf and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2013 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers who appear to be lost in a storyworld, members of theatre or cinema audiences who are moved to tears while watching a performance, beholders of paintings who are absorbed by the representations in front of them, players of computer games entranced by the fictional worlds in which they interactively participate – all of these mental states of imaginative immersion are variants of ‘aesthetic illusion’, as long as the recipients, although thus immersed, are still residually aware that they are experiencing not real life but life-like representations created by artefacts. Aesthetic illusion is one of the most forceful effects of reception processes in representational media and thus constitutes a powerful allurement to expose ourselves, again and again to, e.g., printed stories, pictures and films, be they factual or fictional. In contrast to traditional discussions of this phenomenon, which tend to focus on one medium or genre from one discipline only, the present volume explores aesthetic illusion, as well as its reverse side, the breaking of illusion, from a highly innovative multidisciplinary and transmedial perspective. The essays assembled stem from disciplines that range from literary theory to art history and include contributions on drama, lyric poetry, the visual arts, photography, architecture, instrumental music and computer games, as well as reflections on the cognitive foundations of aesthetic illusion from an evolutionary perspective. The contributions to individual media and aspects of aesthetic illusion are prefaced by a detailed theoretical introduction. Owing to its transmedial and multidisciplinary scope, the volume will be relevant to students and scholars from a wide variety of fields: cultural history at large, intermediality and media studies, as well as, more particularly, literary studies, music, film, and art history.
Download or read book The Metainterface written by Christian Ulrik Andersen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the interface has moved from the PC into cultural platforms, as seen in a series of works of net art, software art and electronic literature. The computer interface is both omnipresent and invisible, at once embedded in everyday objects and characterized by hidden exchanges of information between objects. The interface has moved from office into culture, with devices, apps, the cloud, and data streams as new cultural platforms. In The Metainterface, Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Bro Pold examine the relationships between art and interfaces, tracing the interface's disruption of everyday cultural practices. They present a new interface paradigm of cloud services, smartphones, and data capture, and examine how particular art forms—including net art, software art, and electronic literature—seek to reflect and explore this paradigm. Andersen and Pold argue that despite attempts to make the interface disappear into smooth access and smart interaction, it gradually resurfaces; there is a metainterface to the displaced interface. Art can help us see this; the interface can be an important outlet for aesthetic critique. Andersen and Pold describe the “semantic capitalism” of a metainterface industry that captures user behavior; the metainterface industry's disruption of everyday urban life, changing how the city is read, inhabited, and organized; the ways that the material displacement of the cloud affects the experience of the interface; and the potential of designing with an awareness of the language and grammar of interfaces.
Download or read book The Icon Project written by Leslie Sklair and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A pioneering look at the ways in which contemporary architecture serves the interests of the capitalist class, from global North to South and through to the petro-cities of the Gulf States In the last quarter century, a new form of iconic architecture has appeared throughout the world's major cities. Typically designed by globe-trotting "starchitects" or by a few large transnational architectural firms, these projects are almost always driven by private interests. In The Icon Project, sociologist Leslie Sklair focuses on ways in which capitalist globalization is produced and represented all over the world, especially in globalizing cities. Sklair traces how the iconic buildings of our era-elaborate shopping malls, spectacular museums and vast urban megaprojects-constitute the triumphal "Icon Project" of contemporary global capitalism, promoting increasing inequality and hyperconsumerism. He sets out to explain how the architecture industry organizes the social production and marketing of iconic structures and how corporations increasingly dominate the built environment and promote the trend towards globalizing, consumerist cities. The Icon Project, Sklair argues, is a weapon in the struggle to solidify capitalist hegemony as well as reinforce transnational capitalist control of where we live, what we consume, and how we think"--
Download or read book Civic Spaces and Desire written by Charles Drozynski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civic Spaces and Desire presents an original and critical appraisal of civic spaces for a novel theoretical intersection of architecture and human geography. The authors address civic spaces that embody a strong moral code, such as a remembrance park or a casino, in various places in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. The consecutive chapters of the book present these chosen spaces as the interconnection between the everyday and the ideological. By doing so the book reimagines the socio-political effects of the countercultural assemblages and ontologies of difference that these spaces produce, represent and foster, as presented through outcasts and nomads of various kinds and forms. The book reflects on different interpretations of the key texts from primarily post-linguistic theoreticians, such as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Jacques Derrida. It will benefit students and academics in architecture, geography, philosophy and urban studies and planning, who seek to understand the politics of space, place and civility. By deconstructing normative ideological constructs, the book uses the concept of desire to explore the tensions between expectations of civic spaces and the disappointment and wonder of their immanent existence. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Download or read book A Reader in Themed and Immersive Spaces written by Scott A. Lukas and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2016 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Themed spaces have, at their foundation, an overarching narrative, symbolic complex, or story that drives the overall context of their spaces. Theming, in some very unique ways, has expanded beyond previous stereotypes and oversimplifications of culture and place to now consider new and often controversial topics, themes, and storylines."--Publisher's website.
Download or read book Worlding written by David Trend and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worlding brings ideas about "virtual" places and societies together with perceptions about the "real" world in an era of mounting global uncertainty. As mass media and the Internet consume ever-increasing portions of our lives, are we becoming disengaged from face-to-face human interaction and real-world concerns? Or is the virtual world actually bringing people closer together and making them more involved with social issues? Worlding argues that the "virtual" and the "real" are profoundly interconnected, often in ways we don't fully appreciate. Drawing on sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, media analysis, and technology studies, Worlding makes the argument that virtual experience and social networking can be vital links to utopian visions and an appreciation of the world's diversity.
Download or read book The King of Las Vegas written by John Van Stry and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-18 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An American college student on holiday in India, Rafael fell afoul of a Rakshasa, an old and very powerful tiger-demon. When he finally manages to escape from his captivity, he is left with two small problems; the first is that he is now a Rakshasa himself, the second is that India is deporting him. With a now rather unique physical appearance and a pressing need to find strong emotions that he can feed off of, just where in America can a shape-shifting tiger-demon not only survive, but find acceptance and make a life? Las Vegas of course. But before he can claim his territory, there is the small matter of a vampire infestation that he'll have to deal with, one that the government hasn't been able to clean up since the forties. All while finding or creating enough of those very emotions he needs to survive. For someone skilled in the arts of seduction, with the best Elvis act that the city has ever seen, that may not sound like much of a problem, but just what happens when someone who needs 'love' to survive meets up with the real thing?
Download or read book Merchants in the Temple written by Gianluigi Nuzzi and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a bestselling author with unprecedented access to Pope Francis, an investigative look at the recent financial scandals at the highest levels of the Vatican A veritable war is waging in the Church: on one side, there is Pope Francis’s strong message for one church of the poor and all; on the other, there is the old Curia with its endless enemies, and the old and new lobbies struggling to preserve their not-so-Christian privileges. The old guard do not back down, they are ready to use all means necessary to stay in control and continue the immoral way they conduct their business. They resist reforms sought by Pope Francis and seek to delegitimize their opponents, to isolate those who want to eliminate corruption. It’s a war that will determine the future of the church. And if he loses the battle against secular interests and blackmail, Pope Francis could resign, much like his predecessor. Based on confidential information—including top secret documents from inside the Vatican, and actual transcripts of Pope Francis’s admonishments to the papal court about the lack of financial oversight and responsibility—Merchants in the Temple illustrates all the undercover work conducted by the Pope since his election and shows the reader who his real enemies are. It reveals the instruments Francis is using to reform the Vatican and rid it, once and for all, of the overwhelming corruption traditionally encrusted in the Roman Catholic Church. Merchants in the Temple is a startling book that will shock every reader. It’s a story worthy of a Dan Brown novel, with its electrifying details of the trickery and scheming against the papacy—except that it is real.
Download or read book Unmasking L A written by D. Sawhney and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-05-16 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its birth in 1781, Los Angeles has come to define both the material and spiritual force of American civilization. The American dream is realized, experienced, and lost in the City of Angels. Unmasking L.A.: Third Worlds and the City, an interdisciplinary collection of essays, dialogues, and photographs, seeks to reveal the third world geographies, cultures, and populations of Los Angeles. It examines the social, political, cultural, and literary climate of the city, bringing together diverse responses to the complexities facing Los Angeles from respected intellectuals, writers, and artists such as Mike Davis, Deepak Chopra, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. By uncovering the forces that marginalize Los Angeles's ever-shifting populations into internal third worlds, the collection unmasks the raw contradictions, the grim paradoxes, and the understated ironies of the global city.
Download or read book Z Angl Am written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book EVERYBODY DOES BUSINESS written by Harry Brooks and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry was born and raised in Philadelphia. He always had a penchant for writing, and during his business career, he was a frequent contributor to both trade and financial publications. After retiring from his business in 1989, he wrote his first novel. Since then, he has written five other novels and one unproduced screenplay. He presently writes for a local monthly publication. Harry and his wife live in suburban Philadelphia. Praise for Harry Brook's Novel A Family Secret I'm always fascinated at the way a book translates into a film, but the more I get into this one, the more it becomes a living thing. Things begin to play on multiple levels, characters take on different depth and dimension, and scenes create and recreate themselves Yabo Yabionsky Screenwriter/Director Hollywood, California You cannot be neutral about the characters in Harry Brook's novels. You love them, hate them, wish them away, or want more of them. Having worked with many novelists over the past fifteen years, I can honestly say Harry Brooks has his own style. He is a very good writer. Jay Berger Circulation Management Associates Springfield, Massachusetts
Download or read book Turn of the Century written by Kurt Andersen and published by Delta. This book was released on 2011-03-09 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As big and exciting as the next century, this is a novel of real life at our giddy, feverish, topsy-turvy edge of the millennium. Turn of the Century is a good old-fashioned novel about the day after tomorrow--an uproarious, exquisitely observed panorama of our world as the twentieth century morphs into the twenty-first, transforming family, marriage, and friendship and propelled by the supercharged global businesses and new technologies that make everyone's lives shake and spin a little faster. As the year 2000 progresses, George Mactier and Lizzie Zimbalist, ten years married, are caught up in the whirl of their centrifugally accelerating lives. George is a TV producer for the upstart network MBC, launching a truly and weirdly groundbreaking new show that blurs the line between fact and fiction. Lizzie is a software entrepreneur dealing with the breakneck pleasures and pains of running her own company in an industry where the rules are rewritten daily. Rocketing between Los An-geles and Seattle, with occasional stopovers at home in Manhattan for tag-team parenting of their three children, George and Lizzie are the kind of businesspeople who, growing up in the sixties and seventies, never dreamed they would end up in business. They're too busy to spend the money that's rolling in, and too smart not to feel ambivalent about their crazed, high-gloss existences, but nothing seems to slow the roller-coaster momentum of their inter-secting lives and careers. However, after Lizzie, recovering from a Microsoft deal gone awry, becomes a confidante and adviser to George's boss, billionaire media mogul Harold Mose, the couple discovers that no amount of sophisticated spin can obscure basic instincts: envy, greed, suspicion, sexual temptation--and, maybe, love. When they and their children are finally drawn into a thrilling, high-tech corporate hoax that sends Wall Street reeling (and makes one person very, very rich), George and Lizzie can only marvel at life's oversized surprises and hold on for dear life. Like Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century lays bare the follies of our age with laser-beam precision, creating memorable characters and dissecting the ways we think, speak, and navigate this new era of extreme capitalism and mind-boggling technology. Entertaining, imaginative, knowing, and wise, Turn of the Century is a richly plotted comedy of manners about the way we live now.
