Peter Gidal: Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings (1971)

Peter Gidal’s early book “explores the relationship between the films and Warhol’s paintings. A major exponent of British structuralist/materialist film, the author emphasizes the connection between the serial nature of Warhol’s silkscreens and the fact that cinema consists of multiple frames. He also focuses on the temporal aspect of the films. According to Gidal, the anti-illusionism of Warhol’s cinema stems from his rejection of editing and montage in favor of continuous recording.”

Publisher Studio Vista, London, 1971
ISBN 0289700744, 9780289700747
160 pages

WorldCat

PDF (56 MB)

Katsuhiro Yamaguchi: ロボット・アヴァンギャルド―20世紀芸術と機械 (Robot Avant-Garde: 20th Century Art and the Machine, 1985) [Japanese]

A historical treatise on art and technology written by the Japanese pioneer of media art Katsuhiro Yamaguchi (山口勝弘, 1928-2018), a founding member of the avant-garde group Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop, 1951-1957).

The Yamaguchi Katsuhiro Archive contains documentation of the artist’s oeuvre, including scans of his publications.

Publisher Parco, Tokyo, 1985
ISBN 4891940980, 9784891940980
257 pages
via Yamaguchi Katsuhiro Archive

PDF (80 MB)
DOCX

Pierre Francastel: Art & Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1956–) [ES, EN]

“Although the work of Pierre Francastel (1900-1970) has long carried the label “sociology of art,” it bears little resemblance to anything conventionally sociological. Unlike the followers of the dominant schools of Anglo-American and German art history, Francastel was never obsessed with establishing a quasi-scientific methodology as the basis for his studies. But as art history itself is being reconfigured amid the technological culture of the twenty-first century, his nuanced meditations from the 1950s on the intricate intersection of technology and art gain heightened value.

The concrete objects Francastel examines are for the most part from the architecture and design of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Through them, he engages his central problem: the abrupt historical collision between traditional symbol activities of human society and the appearance in the nineteenth century of unprecedented technological and industrial capabilities and forms.”

First published as Art et technique aux XIXe et XXe siècles, Paris, 1956.

English edition
With a Foreword by Yve-Alain Bois
Translated by Randall Cherry
Publisher Zone Books, New York, 2000
ISBN 1890951021, 9781890951023
331 pages

Review: Sean Cubitt (Leonardo, 2001).

Publisher (EN)
WorldCat (EN)

Arte y técnica en los siglos XIX y XX (Spanish, trans. Maria Jose Garcia Ripoll, 1990, 22 MB, via)
Art & Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (English, trans. Randall Cherry, 2000, 14 MB, updated on 2019-10-11)