A thoughtful study on how our eyes function with our brains examines the irrational elements of physical sight and concludes that human seeing transforms both the viewer and the object being viewed. 15,000 first printing.

This fourth edition is a revision of the successful introduction to film appreciation and aesthetics. It begins with an overview of film production, moves on to a consideration of the formal elements and techniques, covers film criticism and concludes with a brief section highlighting the key moments in film history. Illustrated with over 500 frame enlargements, many in colour, "Film Art" has been updated to include analysis of some of the most interesting films of recent years including "Raging Bull" and "Desperately Seeking Susan".

Collecting the best photographs from two thousand issues of Life magazine, a rerelease of the successful 1988 edition is complemented by eighteen additional works that include portraits of such figures as Dolly Parton and the Clintons. Reprint.

Softcover - "The Eighth Open Studios Midwestern Competition - a catalog of the winner's work."

Containing 30 essays that embody the history of photography, this collection includes contributions from Niepce, Daguerre, Fox, Talbot, Poe, Emerson, Hine, Stieglitz, and Weston, among others.

2ndsight is the sequel to The End of Print, the first monograph on David Carson's work. Rather than simply being a collection of the work produced since the first book was published, however, 2ndsight is a sequel in the true sense of the word. While The End of Print showed the world Carson's radical new approach, his rejection of the traditional 'rules' of communication, 2ndsight examines the creative process behind the work, and considers the broader implications of his intuitive approach to graphic design. Intuition is central to the book's thesis, and its meaning and influence is explored both in Lewis Blackwell's writing and in the evocative texts by leading designers and thinkers interspersed throughout the book.

As well as presenting Carson's commercial work— his latest ideas in advertising, magazine and book design, web sites, film and video— 2ndsight examines work inspired by exhibitions, talks, and workshops. The student workshops Carson conducts in design colleges around the world throw particular light on his creative process. The workings of these sessions are examined: their chief aim being not to teach computer skills or encourage participants to mimic the master, but to help them find their own voice. Collages put together by Carson of selected work pay tribute to the thousands of designers who have taken part.

Finally, a conversation between Blackwell and Carson probes Carson's working methods— his collage technique of using two or more files at once on screen; of working in black and white; of moving to and from the computer, printing out each stage of a design before developing it further; his experimentation with the balance of type and image. Above all, his respect for intuition and his conviction that it is the key to truly individual graphic expression.

In 1993, Scott McCloud tore down the wall between high and low culture with the acclaimed international hit Understanding Comics, a massive comic book that explored the inner workings of the worlds most misunderstood art form. Now, McCloud takes comics to the next level, charting twelve different revolutions in how comics are created, read, and perceived today, and how they're poised to conquer the new millennium.

Part One of this fascinating and in-depth book includes:

The life of comics as an art form and as literatureThe battle for creators' rightsReinventing the business of comicsThe volatile and shifting public perceptions of comicsSexual and ethnic representation on comics

Then in Part Two, McCloud paints a breathtaking picture of comics' digital revolutions, including:

The intricacies of digital productionThe exploding world of online deliveryThe ultimate challenges of the infinite digital canvas

A comprehensive and absorbing look at the music of the twentieth century, with an introduction by Brian Eno.

The 20th Century saw two revolutionary changes in music. First music was deconstructed from its previously strict form, moving from formal constraints to more accessible melodies. Second, the way in which music was generated radically changed as new electronic equipment inspired experiments with sound divorced from traditional acoustic instruments.

More and more, innovative musical ideas became intertwined with technological change. Multi-track recording, editing, and improved microphones allowed for quieter, experimental elements to gain prominence. And with the advent of digital synthesizers, new music could be made by anyone and sound like almost anything.

The Ambient Century is the definitive chronicle of a century of musical change. It reveals the drift from composers to non-musicians, from the single note to the sample. Encyclopedic, yet with a strong narrative, The Ambient Century covers hundreds of artists, including such diverse artists as Gustav Mahler (the pioneer of modern music), Phillip Glass, New Order, and Moby. Lively, compelling, and authoritative-and boasting an unmatched discography. The Ambient Century is a treat for music lovers of all kinds.

It's campy, it's cool, empty, intrusive, trite, and treacly. It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will — elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies.
Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk — if they notice — bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution.
Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal.
Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age.
One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording."
Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.

Perhaps the first serious analysis of the Beatles' work and its impact on popular music, Tell Me Why is meticulous in its purpose and long overdue....Of the hundreds of books written about [the Beatles] none bring the musical knowledge and the familiarity with the period that Riley offers here."

— Cleveland Plain Dealer

Album by album, song by song, Tim Riley gives us a new, deeper understanding of the Beatles. Outdistancing the countless tell-all biographies that have been written, Riley's study of the Beatles' music is as rigorous as it is soulful. He explores the entire Beatles catalogue, making clear that the legendary four were not simply teen idols — that they were, in fact, brilliant musical innovators who created timeless songs and virtually invented the album-as-art.

Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most intangible of all forms of art. Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this challenging book, he explores why this should be so. Music is a succession of tones through time. How can a sequence of sounds both express emotion and evoke it in the listener? Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions. Dr. Storr was a practicing psychiatrist for nearly forty years and is a distinguished thinker about the sources of creativity. He is deeply concerned with the psychology of the creative process and with the healing power of the arts. Here he explains how, in a culture which requires us in our daily working lives to separate rational thought from feelings, music reunites the mind and body, restoring our sense of personal wholeness. It is because music possesses this capacity that many people, including the author, find it so life-enhancing that it justifies existence. Dr. Storr's investigation of music is also an exploration of the human psyche. That is why this book, like all his work, deepens our understanding of ourselves and the lives we lead.

The scandal over modern music has not died down. While paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, shocking musical works from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring onward still send ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, the influence of modern music can be felt everywhere. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalist music has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward. Alex Ross, the brilliant music critic for The New Yorker, shines a bright light on this secret world, and shows how it has pervaded every corner of twentieth century life.   The Rest Is Noise takes the reader inside the labyrinth of modern sound. It tells of maverick personalities who have resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with the purest beauty or battered them with the purest noise, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art.   Ross, in this sweeping and dramatic narrative, takes us from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. In the tradition of Simon Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches and Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, the end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.

From the back cover: "The first general book on the changing relations between poetry and music in Western history, tracing technical influences and aesthetic quarrels from Greek antiquity to the mid-twentieth century".

An extraordinary work of sonic history that travels from the rainforests of the Amazon to virtual Las Vegas, from erik Satie to the Velvet Underground, from the new digital technology to the sounds of war, in exploration of a new musical culture. Also includes extensive discography and bibliography.