Geoffrey Winthrop-Young: Kittler and the Media (2011)

“With books such as Discourse Networks and Gramophone, Film, Typewriter and the collection Literature, Media, Information Systems, Friedrich Kittler has established himself as one of the world’s most influential media theorists. He is also one of the most controversial and misunderstood.

Kittler and the Media offers students of media theory an introduction to Kittler’s basic ideas. Following an introduction that situates Kittler’s work against the tumultuous background of German 20th-century history (from the Second World War and the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s to reunification), the book provides succinct summaries of Kittler’s early discourse-analytical work inspired by French post-structuralism, his media-related theorising and his most recent writings on cultural techniques and the notation systems of Ancient Greece.

This clear and engaging overview of a fascinating theorist will be welcomed by students and scholars alike of media, communication and cultural studies.”

Publisher Polity, 2011
Theory and Media series
ISBN 0745644066, 9780745644066
165 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2019-12-8)

Michel Foucault: Manet and the Object of Painting (1971–) [FR, ES, EN, RU]

“In this encounter between one of the 20th century’s greatest minds and an artist fundamental to the development of modern art, Michel Foucault explores Edouard Manet’s importance in the overthrow of traditional values in painting.

Originally delivered in Tunis in 1971 as part of a conference on Manet and here translated into English for the first time, this powerful critique takes the form of a commentary on 13 of Manet’s paintings. For the political-minded philosopher, the connection between visual art and power was clear: art is not an aesthetic pursuit, but a means to explore and challenge power dynamics. A precursor to Foucault’s later work on le regard, or the gaze, the text examines paintings like Un Bar aux Folies-Bergere, where Manet used the mirror to imply the multiple gaze of the waitress, the viewer, and the man at the bar, who may or may not be the artist himself. Foucault used Manet as a basis for a wider exploration of culture.”

English edition
Translated by Matthew Barr
With an Introduction by Nicolas Bourriaud
Publisher Tate, London, 2009
ISBN 1854378457, 9781854378453
80 pages

Commentary: James Polchin (The New Inquiry, 2011)
Bruno-Nassim Aboudrar (Critique d’art, 2004, FR).
Review: John Elias Nale (Foucault Studies, 2005).

Publisher (FR)
Publisher (EN)

Le noir et la surface & La peinture de Manet (French, manuscript with transcription, from Cahiers de L’Herne, 2011, pp 378-395 & 396-409). Audio excerpt (both links updated on 2021-2-3)
La pintura de Manet (Spanish, trans. Roser Vilagrassa, 2005)
Manet and the Object of Painting (English, trans. Matthew Barr, 2009, updated on 2021-2-3)
Zhivopis Mane (Russian, trans. A.V. Dyakov, 2011, added on 2014-6-6)

See also Georges Bataille: Manet: Biographical and Critical Study, 1955.

John Cage: Song Books (Solos for Voice 3-92) (1970)

In Song Books, John Cage “paid fascinating tribute to Thoreauvian anarchism. The 319-page, two-volume score consists of [90] short vocal solos composed by 50 different methods. Cage used chance operations throughout—to decide the number of songs, the particular composition technique (transparency, star chart)—leaving behind hundreds of pages of outlines. The song texts range all over: bits from current newspapers (‘POLICE SET UP ROADBLOCKS’); tributes to Satie and Duchamp; quotations from Fuller, Brown, McLuhan; passages in Japanese, French, German, Polish, Spanish; textless melodic lines to vocalize or hum.

But Cage’s literary-musipolitical sprawl keeps returning to Thoreau. The score includes such material as a portrait of Thoreau (Solo 5) and a map of Concord (Solo 3), to be wandered over in order to suggest a melodic line; a description of Thoreau’s nature walks (Solo 4); and remarks from Thoreau’s journal about the telegraph harp (Solo 17), as well as syllable mixes from the journal (Solo 85). The score also calls for showing twenty-two Thoreau-related slides and presenting something by Thoreau as a gift to some member of the audience.

Cage’s most emphatic invocation of Thoreau, however, is the lengthy Solo 35. Its eleven pages of text essentially repeat again and again, in slightly different verbal and rhythmic arrangement, the opening declaration of Civil Disobedience: ‘The best form of government is no government at all’. Cage called for Thoreau’s words to be rhapsodized. His instructions read: ‘Sing in an optomistic [sic] spirit. .. Before singing this solo, raise either the black flag of Anarchy or the flag of the Whole Earth .. do not lower it at any time during the performance.’

Cage’s Song Books most effectively raises the Thoreauvian flag of anarchy by acting it out. In a sort of indeterminacy gone wild, singers are free to choose to perform any number of any solos they wish for any length of time in any order—accompanied, if they wish, by other indeterminate music, such as the Concert for Piano and Orchestra. They also freely choose their own costumes, and sometimes their own words and pauses—one performer not more important than another, each doing his or her own thing. Having created this uncompetitive model of ‘practical global anarchy’, Cage laughingly said that it was nearly impossible to consider Song Books a work of art: ‘Who would dare? It resembles a brothel, doesn’t it?'” (from Kenneth Silverman, Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage, 2010)

Publisher Henmar Press, New York, 1970
319 pages

Wikipedia

First complete recording of Song Books (Sub Rosa, 2012)
Choreographic interpretation of 15 selected songs (video, 1h, c2013)

Volume 1: Solos for Voice 3-58 (53 MB)
Volume 2: Solos for Voice 59-92 (24 MB)
Note: There was also a third volume published. Entitled “Instructions” it contains various tables and other materials necessary for performance of some of the pieces.