David McNally: Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · africa, body, capitalism, folklore, literature, neoliberalism, political economy, popular culture, zombies
Monsters of the Market investigates the rise of capitalism through the prism of the body-panics it arouses. Drawing on folklore, literature and popular culture, the book links tales of monstrosity from early-modern England, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to a spate of recent vampire- and zombie-fables from sub-Saharan Africa, and it connects these to Marx’s persistent use of monster-metaphors in his descriptions of capitalism. Reading across these tales of the grotesque, Monsters of the Market offers a novel account of the cultural and corporeal economy of a global market-system. The book thus makes original contributions to political economy, cultural theory, commodification-studies and ‘body-theory’.
Publisher BRILL, 2011
Volume 30 of Historical Materialism Book Series
ISBN 9004201572, 9789004201576
308 pages
review (Mark Worrell, Marx & Philosophy)
Comment (1)Jane Pavitt: Fear and Fashion in the Cold War (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, cold war, cybernetics, fashion, military, politics
From Barbarella’s bikini to vinyl radiation suits to high-tech jewelry, the Cold War’s impact on fashion was unmistakable.
Atomic anxieties, the space race, technological developments, and the first forays into “super-reality” led to innovations in materials, the cybernetic visions of the 1960s, and a range of surprising responses from artists, filmmakers, scientists, and designers. With a stunning selection of images, including photographs by fashion luminaries such as John French, Fear and Fashion in the Cold War explores how the image of the body was shaped by Cold War concerns between 1945 and 1970. In this engaging book, Jane Pavitt incorporates military, political, and scientific research in an engrossing discussion of how countercultural theories and experiences in the later 1960s shaped an alternative view of the “Cold War Body.”
Publisher V&A, London, 2008
ISBN 1851775447, 9781851775446
128 pages
via Royal College of Art
Stan VanDerBeek: Violence Sonata / The History of Violence in America (1970)
Filed under artist publishing | Tags: · art, collage, education, machine, mass media, media, participation, performance, technology, television, violence
Stan VanDerBeek was part of the “Rockefeller Artists-in-Television” residency program at Boston public television station WGBH from 1969–1970, during which time he produced the simulcast television program Violence Sonata. The program, directed by David Atwood and Fred Barzyk, was transmitted simultaneously on both Channels 2 and 44 on January 12, 1970, with the suggestion that viewers place two television sets side-by-side. Following sonata form, the piece is composed of three segments: “Man,” “Man to Woman,” and “Man to Man.” The simultaneous broadcast consisted of material VanDerBeek composed from previous films, archival and newsreel footage, video shot in Boston for the show, and filmed collages, further manipulated and enhanced through overlays and color saturation. Sections of the broadcast were played before a live studio audience, with actors also performing a play written by VanDerBeek for the show. Home viewers were encouraged to call in their responses to the program between the acts. The series of collages entitled The History of Violence in America was conceived as layouts for reproduction and publication in a booklet to accompany the broadcast.
Commentary: Melissa Ragain (X-TRA, 2012).
Video excerpt (Violence Sonata)
PDF (Violence Sonata – script, photo documentation, sketches, collages, reviews)
PDF (The History of Violence in America, 22 pages)