[spectre] (fwd) review of: El medio es el diseno audiovisual

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Oliver Grau <oliver.grau at DONAU-UNI.AC.AT>
Subject: El medio es el diseño audiovisual
To: NEW-MEDIA-CURATING at JISCMAIL.AC.UK



El medio es el dise*o audiovisual

by Jorge La Ferla, Editor
Editorial Universidad de Caldas, Manizales, Colombia, 2007
702 pp. Paper, US$ 40.00 (80.000 $ colombianos)
ISBN: 978-958-8319-05-6.

Reviewed by Jos*-Carlos Mari*tegui
Alta Tecnolog*a Andina (Lima, Peru) and London School of Economics London,
UK

jcm at ata.org.pe

Since the early 90*s the Argentinean media theorist Jorge La Ferla has been
publishing a series of compilations bringing the voices of Latin American
and European intellectuals together. Thanks to his constant work through the
La Ferla Chair at the University of Buenos Aires his publications have been
not only decisive for several generations of students and researchers in
Latin America, but also were among the first ones in Spanish that gave light
to new topics surrounding the interdisciplinary fields of new media.

The publication of El medio es el dise*o audiovisual (The medium is the
audiovisual design) brings part of his previous editorial work together with
several new titles into a massive compound of 46 authors and 72 texts,
making this book the most complete compilation of new media theory to date
published in Spanish. As in the case of La Ferla*s previous projects, one of
the merits of El medio es el dise*o audiovisual is that it brings for the
first time Spanish translations of several emblematic texts on new media
theory.

Usually there is a tendency to publish books and articles of Western
mainstream intellectuals as the only and decisive voices surrounding media
arts; however, the harmonic blending with articles by writers from Latin
America, makes this publication unique. Texts from Arlindo Machado, Paula
Sibilia, Claudia Giannetti and Lucia Santaella are published along with
other better-know authors such as Lev Manovich, Umberto Eco, Oliver Grau,
Pierre Levy or Peter Weibel, composing an original blend of contributors
with ideological solidity. An additional innovation is making visible the
names of other intellectuals, particularly from the Colombian scene, where
the book was published, such as Hernando Barrag*n, Ricardo Cede*o M., Myriam
Luisa D*az, Mauricio Dur*n, Carmen Gil Vrolijk, Iliana Hern*ndez, and Felipe
C*sar Londo*o.

The compilation is divided in nine chapters with varied topics that include
the relations between art, science and technology, television studies,
experimental film, new media design, media archaeology, video art, hypertext
and non-linear narratives, interactive media and new media philosophy.
Though we may argue about the way the texts in each chapter are compiled
since the notion of new media is in permanent shift, so are these broad
topics, which makes El medio es el dise*o audiovisual a screenshot of the
current state of affairs. Additionally to the contributions, an analytic
Index and a list of referenced works transforms this publication into an
important research tool.

The book is also part of a broader opinionated project of making more
diverse the present homogeneous discourse around new media and audiovisual
technologies. An additional critique to the book is that this blend lacks
contributions from other new contexts of the world where there is currently
an active development of the field of new media, such as India, China, the
Middle East or South Africa. However, taking a critical stance on the
diverse ways of thinking, designing or creating in different places of the
world, the book tries to make a global and diverse assemblage by
incorporating authors from the Latin-American context. The book includes
several texts around design concepts and issues in new media and tries to
intersect these ideas with broader media issues that are prospective and
important for the 21st century, ranging from current media wars, specially
taking into consideration that Colombia in itself is a country with an
internal war. This prospective vision is complemented with deep and
thoughtful texts on the history of new media from authors such as Vil*m
Flusser or Siegfried Zielinski. In conclusion, the context-hygienic vision
of new media and several universalistic visions, which do not mean they
loose their critical carriage, are reconfigured with more local postures to
enable a global panopticon. Finally, is worth mentioning the unique social
nature of this publication that is orientated to being accessible as much as
possible by selling it at an affordable price that covers the basic printing
costs; the funds will be then used to generate new titles through the same
egalitarian modality. El medio es el dise*o audiovisual stands by itself as
a very important contribution that will benefit the future generations of
researchers and students of new media in the Spanish-speaking Latin America.



Updated 1st June 2007


http://leonardo.info/reviews/jun2007/el_mariategui.html


Contact LDR: ldr at leonardo.org

Contact Leonardo: isast at sfsu.edu

copyright (c) 2007 ISAST