Image-thinking : artmaking as cultural analysis

Bal, Mieke 1946- (author). Mitchell, W. J. T. (William John Thomas), 1942- (writer of prologue).

Summary: Art making as thinking proposes a new model of synthesis of creative and intellectual work that will benefit practitioners, students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences. Merges theoretical and practical considerations in innovative and empowering ways. Clarifies difficult concepts through accounts of practice including trauma, agency, identity and affect. Closes with a discussion of cultural memory. Includes 10 in-depth case studies of films made over 20 years where each case study integrates concrete analysis with theoretical reflection. In this rich, highly illustrated book, Mieke Bal takes us on a journey through the range of her work, using the concept of image-thinking as a point of connection between cultural analysis and artistic practice. Sharing a lifetime of experience of writing about art, making films and installations, as well as curating exhibitions, she shows us how these may be brought into dialogue with insights from theory. Bal teaches us how to think with images, but also how to write and think - as artists and writers - about our own creative work. This is Mieke Bal at her most personal and her best

Record details

ISBN: 9781474494236
ISBN: 1474494234
ISBN: 9781474494229
ISBN: 1474494226
Physical Description: xxix, 448 pages : color illustrations ; 27 cm
print
Publisher: Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2022]
Copyright: ©2022

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Formatted Contents Note:

Iconomania: on the thinking-image and madness / Prologue by W. J. T. Mitchell -- 1. Introduction: Making as Thinking, and vice versa -- 2. Time-Space: Spatialising Film: 'A Long History of Madness', Nalini Malani ('Remembering Mad Meg'), Pieter Breughel the Elder ('Mad Meg') -- 3. Who speaks the film, in documentaries?: a thousand and one voices: 'Mille et un Jours' ('A Thousand and One Days'), Marcel Proust ('In Search of Lost Time'), Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly ('Singin' in the Rain') -- 4. Multi-Tentacled Time: Contemporaneity, Heterochrony, Anachronism for Preposterous History: '2 MOVE' (the exhibition), Heringa/van Kalsbeek ('Untitled'), Marclay ('The Clock'), 'It's About Time!', 'Reflections on Urgency' -- 5. Making Up, Making As: Fiction and/in/with Reality: 'Becoming Vera', 'Reasonable Doubt', Various works of contemporary art -- 6. Showing Trauma?: Difficulty and Necessity: 'Don Quijote: Sad Countenances', 'A Long History of Madness' -- 7. Agency, Facing: 'Nothing is Missing' (the installation), Bertien van Manen -- 8. Cultural Citizenship vs. Identity: 'Becoming Vera', 'State of Suspension', 'Separations', Aleksandr Pushkin ('Eugeni Onegin') -- 9. Affect as an Artistic- Political Strategy: 'Madame B' (the film, various installations), Doris Salcedo ('Palimpsesto') -- 10. By Way of Conclusion: For Memory: Dis-remembered, Mis-remembered: 'Access Denied', 'A Long History of Madness', 'Reasonable Doubt', Eija-Liisa Ahtila ('Where is Where?')