In this new scene-by-scene break-down of the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, contemporary culture critic John David Ebert frames the work in reference to an archaeology of the film's images. At the same time, Ebert connects this ancient history with"postmodern" contemporary critical theory, drawing upon Lacan, Derrida, Gadamer, and Cornelius Castoriadis, unpacking and analyzing Francis Ford Coppola's classic, one of the most famous and wildly inventive works in cinema history. In 23 chapters, Ebert interprets the longer Apocalypse Now Redux version, delving deep into the film's complex layers of literary meaning and aesthetic significance. John David Ebert has authored ten previous books, including Art After Metaphysics, Dead Celebrities Living Icons, The New Media Invasion, Post-Classic Cinema, and Gods & Heroes of the Media Age.
This book, a sort of "John David Ebert Reader," collects and gathers his most recent essays, displaying a broad range of topics from spree killers to disappearing planes; from the disintegrative effects of technology upon society to ruminations on contemporary art and literature; and also includes a section on the cult and culture of the multi-media celebrity. These essays, never before published in book form, show the broad range of Ebert's thought and give the reader a sense of his wide grasp upon the various cultural phenomena of contemporary post-historic society.
Contemporary art is a very different kind of art from anything that has ever been practiced in the past. It is an art that takes place after the age of metaphysics, when all the imaginary significations that once used to anchor art in traditional meaning systems have disintegrated. Today's artist, consequently, is left with a rubble heap of broken meaning systems, discarded signifiers and semiotic vacancies that must be sifted through in a quest for new meanings appropriate to an age that has been reshaped by globalization. Through discussions of the works of artists such as Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Christian Boltanski and many others, John David Ebert attempts to fathom the nature of what it means to be an artist in a post-metaphysical age in which all certainties of meaning have collapsed.
This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic ways—ways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day. We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.
In this new collection of essays cultural critic John David Ebert traces the history of what Jacques Derrida termed "transcendental signifieds" as they have evolved from the archetypes of ancient myth through the philosophical Ideas of German Idealist philosophy and on down to their disintegration into the floating signifiers of today's consumer society. From myth to philosophy to science, these ultimate signifieds have undergone many transformations: beginning as the Sumerian gods, Ebert carefully traces the impacts of science and technology upon these Ideas as they changed over the millenia, finally becoming dismantled by Heidegger's "abbau" and then dangerously assaulted by the Unabomber's attempts to assassinate the very men of science who are creating today's mass of consumerist archetypes. Science and popular culture have deconstructed the ultimate signifieds of ancient ritual, symbol and myth, and now we are set adrift in a sea of floating signifiers that are competing with each other to fill the semiotic vacancies left behind by the collapse of such ancient and ultimate referents as God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality. This collection of eight essays, most of them never before published in book form, spans the breadth of Ebert's career from 1997 to 2015.
With this new book by John David Ebert, Blade Runner Scene-by-Scene, Ebert performs an archaeology of Ridley Scott's main thematic concerns: death, origin, genesis and the quest for immortality. In doing so, he compares the film to such ancient and classic texts as The Gilgamesh Epic. Scott's vision of the Los Angeles of 2019 is seen as a type of decaying, late stage cosmopolis; and the Replicants as slave labor manufactured to work their modern latifundia.
From the 15th century until the mid–1990s, media based on the printed word—books, magazines, handbills, newspapers, and journals—dominated society. Today, an onslaught of digital media centered on the Internet is developing at a breathtaking pace, destabilizing the very idea of printed media and fundamentally reshaping our world in the process. This study explores how Internet entities like Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google, and gadgets such as digital cameras, cell phones, video games, robots, drones, and all things MacIntosh have affected everything from the book industry and copyright law to how we conduct social relationships and consider knowledge. Including a chronology of significant events in the history of the digital explosion, this investigation of the often overlooked “shadow” side of new technology chronicles life during a radical societal shift and follows the process whereby one world disintegrates while another takes its place. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
John David Ebert's Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons examines how movies since the late 1960s have developed a "myth of the machine" for our contemporary society. Modern technology, Ebert argues, has created a new environment which raises problems that our modern myths, in celluloid form, attempt to resolve by presenting a number of possible scenarios ranging from "demolition" of the machine, as in The Lord of the Rings, to "symbiosis," as in the Star Wars films. Ebert examines films such as Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Videodrome, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and A.I. for answers to the question how modern man can retain his humanity while living in a society which is increasingly dominated by the technology he has created.
The novel is no longer the youngest medium, but today has been displaced by the graphic novel, an even younger medium. Whereas the novel had been concerned with the various utopian projects of Modernity, the graphic novel operates inside a world horizon of mad scientists, failed superheroes and crumbling cities. Indeed, it takes for granted the failure of all modernizing utopias, while simultaneously retrieving two-dimensional Giant Humans from the world of the ancient epics with which to construct personal immune systems for the Self, especially since public immune systems no longer function properly. In this book, John David Ebert discusses 24 of the most popular graphic novels of all time, including "The Dark Knight Returns," "Watchmen," "Black Hole," etc., looking for traces of the new imaginary significations with which the youth of today are shoring up the ruins of their own subjectivities.
Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg, together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization. This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside, while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made." Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg, together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization. This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside, while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made." Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic waysways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day. We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.
From the 15th century until the mid–1990s, media based on the printed word—books, magazines, handbills, newspapers, and journals—dominated society. Today, an onslaught of digital media centered on the Internet is developing at a breathtaking pace, destabilizing the very idea of printed media and fundamentally reshaping our world in the process. This study explores how Internet entities like Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google, and gadgets such as digital cameras, cell phones, video games, robots, drones, and all things MacIntosh have affected everything from the book industry and copyright law to how we conduct social relationships and consider knowledge. Including a chronology of significant events in the history of the digital explosion, this investigation of the often overlooked “shadow” side of new technology chronicles life during a radical societal shift and follows the process whereby one world disintegrates while another takes its place. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
The first dictionary dedicated to the work of Paul Virilio, offering you clear and contemporary direction through the work of Virilio, the French critic of art and technology.
The infamous eco-anarchist John Zerzan whose books have resulted in recent interviews by Vice and Believer magazines, checks in with further provocative articles about the chaotic results of civilization and technology. Says novelist Lang Gore in his introduction: "The present collection of essays continues the overarching thrust of John's scholarship, unveiling the post-apocalyptic nature of our times by noting the apocalypse was yesterday, several thousand years ago, to be precise, and that nothing produced by civilization can ever redeem the systematic attempt it has undertaken these (very) few millennia to destroy or alienate any human connection with the earth. "In fact, when civilized Europeans imposed themselves everywhere on Earth, they created a terminal crisis for themselves by their very contact with indigenous societies. Suddenly, those with eyes to see and ears to hear could recognize that patriarchy, property and authority, and certainly slavery, were neither necessary nor desirable, let alone determined by 'human nature.
OpenGL® Shading Language, Third Edition, extensively updated for OpenGL 3.1, is the experienced application programmer’s guide to writing shaders. Part reference, part tutorial, this book thoroughly explains the shift from fixed-functionality graphics hardware to the new era of programmable graphics hardware and the additions to the OpenGL API that support this programmability. With OpenGL and shaders written in the OpenGL Shading Language, applications can perform better, achieving stunning graphics effects by using the capabilities of both the visual processing unit and the central processing unit. In this book, you will find a detailed introduction to the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) and the new OpenGL function calls that support it. The text begins by describing the syntax and semantics of this high-level programming language. Once this foundation has been established, the book explores the creation and manipulation of shaders using new OpenGL function calls. OpenGL® Shading Language, Third Edition, includes updated descriptions for the language and all the GLSL entry points added though OpenGL 3.1, as well as updated chapters that discuss transformations, lighting, shadows, and surface characteristics. The third edition also features shaders that have been updated to OpenGL Shading Language Version 1.40 and their underlying algorithms, including Traditional OpenGL fixed functionality Stored textures and procedural textures Image-based lighting Lighting with spherical harmonics Ambient occlusion and shadow mapping Volume shadows using deferred lighting Ward’s BRDF model The color plate section illustrates the power and sophistication of the OpenGL Shading Language. The API Function Reference at the end of the book is an excellent guide to the API entry points that support the OpenGL Shading Language.
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