Jean Rouch: Ciné-Ethnography (2003)

:One of the most influential figures in documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, Jean Rouch has made more than one hundred films in West Africa and France. In such acclaimed works as Jaguar, The Lion Hunters, and Cocorico, Monsieur Poulet, Rouch has explored racism, colonialism, African modernity, religious ritual, and music. He pioneered numerous film techniques and technologies, and in the process inspired generations of filmmakers, from New Wave directors, who emulated his cinema verite style, to today’s documentarians. Cine-Ethnography is a long-overdue English-language resource that collects Rouch’s key writings, interviews, and other materials that distill his thinking on filmmaking, ethnography, and his own career. Editor Steven Feld opens with a concise overview of Rouch’s career, highlighting the themes found throughout his work. In the four essays that follow, Rouch discusses the ethnographic film as a genre, the history of African cinema, his experiences of filmmaking among the Songhay,and the intertwined histories of French colonialism, anthropology, and cinema. And in four interviews, Rouch thoughtfully reflects on each of his films, as well as his artistic, intellectual, and political concerns. Cine-Ethnography also contains an annotated transcript of Chronicle of a Summer–one of Rouch’s most important works–along with commentary by the filmmakers, and concludes with a complete, annotated filmography and a bibliography. The most thorough resource on Rouch available in any language, Cine-Ethnography makes clear this remarkable and still vital filmmaker’s major role in the history of documentary cinema.”

Edited and translated by Steven Feld
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2003
ISBN 0816641048, 9780816641048
400 pages

Key words and phrases
Dogon, Jean Rouch, Sigui, Edgar Morin, Germaine Dieterlen, Marcel Griaule, Michel Brault, Damoure, Pale Fox, Marilou, African cinema, Niger River, Bandiagara, Dziga Vertov, Oumarou Ganda, direct cinema, Niamey, Songhay, Ghana, Treichville

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2019-10-20)

Rául Rojas, Ulf Hashagen (eds.): The First Computers: History and Architectures (2000)

This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers.

An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why “being first” is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today’s machines.

Publisher MIT Press, 2000
ISBN: 0262181975, 9780262181976
471 pages

Key words and phrases
ENIAC, EDSAC, Konrad Zuse, DEHOMAG, vacuum tubes, EDVAC, IAS computer, punched tape, parametron, mantissa, magnetic drum, punched card, analog computer, John von Neumann, Manchester Mark, Zuse KG, delay lines, floating-point, lambda calculus, Howard Aiken

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-25)

From Absolute Cinema to Future Film: Materials from the History of Experiment in the Moving Picture Art (2009) [EN, PL]

“This book initiates a new series of publications entitled Widok. WRO Media Art Reader. Its subsequent topical issues will be devoted to the presentation of materials about theory, esthetics and history of new media art.

Widok (Polish for “the view”) means a particular perspective, but it is also the name of the street in Wrocław where WRO Art Center has opened in 2008. In accordance with its name, the series presents an insight into cultural and artistic phenomena from the realm of new media, as seen through the collection and archives of the International Media Art Biennale WRO. It is thus a view shaped by the works, topics and personalities throughout 20 years of WRO activities, presenting the nexus of art, technology and social phenomena emerging from the shifting domains of artistic creation and media.”

Edited by Violetta Kutlubasis-Krajewska and Piotr Krajewski
Publisher WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, 2009
84 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (English, updated on 2016-11-10)
PDF (Polish, added on 2016-11-10)