In No Medium; Craig Dworkin looks at works that are blank; erased; clear; or silent; writing critically and substantively about works for which there would seem to be not only nothing to see but nothing to say. Examined closely; these ostensibly contentless works of art; literature; and music point to a new understanding of media and the limits of the artistic object. Dworkin considers works predicated on blank sheets of paper; from a fictional collection of poems in Jean Cocteaus Orpheacute;e to the actual publication of a ream of typing paper as a book of poetry; he compares Robert Rauschenbergs Erased De Kooning Drawing to the artist Nick Thurstons erased copy of Maurice Blanchots The Space of Literature (in which only Thurstons marginalia were visible); and he scrutinizes the sexual politics of photographic representation and the implications of obscured or obliterated subjects of photographs. Reexamining the famous case of John Cages 433"; Dworkin links Cages composition to Rauschenbergs White Paintings; Ken Friedmans Zen for Record (and Nam June Paiks Zen for Film); and other works; offering also a "guide to further listening" that surveys more than 100 scores and recordings of "silent" music. Dworkin argues that we should understand media not as blank; base things but as social events; and that there is no medium; understood in isolation; but only and always a plurality of media: interpretive activities taking place in socially inscribed space.
#4601757 in eBooks 2011-10-28 2011-10-28File Name: B00BIMWBGK
Review
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Exploration of the ancient Greece and its monuments.By K. PerentidisIt is an interested book about the Periklean Athens; including many chapters for all the ancient monuments. I especially enjoyed the chapter about the red-figured and the black-figured vessels. I think there were not enough about the Parthenon and its frieze; but there was a small chapter for the early stages of the Peloponnesian war.(for further studing one should read Donalds Kagan:The Peloponneian War).I also found useful that there were a lot of photos from almost all the monuments.There are many notes at the end of each chapter which I found useful enough for anyone who wants to search more.