At The Edges Of Vision

In At the Edges of Vision, Ren?van de Vall re-examines the aesthetics of spectatorship in terms of new-media art and visual culture. The aesthetic experience of visual art has traditionally been described in terms of the distanced contemplation and critical interpretation of the work's form and representational content. Recent developments in installation, video and computer art have foregrounded the bodily and affective engagement of the spectator and, in retrospect, throw into question the model of spectatorial distance for more traditional art forms as well. But what does this development entail for art's potential for reflective, imaginative and experiential depth? Is art still capable of providing a critical counterpoint to the ubiquitous presence of sensational, yet short-lived media imagery when it speaks to the senses rather than to the mind? In a thorough examination of examples from painting, film, installation art and interactive video, and computer art, Van de Vall argues for a tactile and affective conception of reflection, linking philosophy and art. Looking at a Rembrandt self-portrait and navigating through an internet art work have in common that both types of work rely on a playful, rhythmically structured, sensuous and embodied reflexivity for the articulation of meaning. This sensuous dimension of playful reflexivity is just as important in philosophical thought, however, as the transcendental condition for genuine, open-ended reflection. Drawing on the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Lyotard and Deleuze on the one hand and on new-media theory on the other, Van de Vall develops a performative phenomenology of aesthetic reflection, visuality and visual art, in order to rethink art's ethical and political relevance in present-day digital-media culture.

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. Now available in an affordable paperback edition, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations--from the Photo-Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1950s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers--Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind, Barbara Kasten, Ellen Carey and James Welling among them--took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores the influence the history of abstraction exerts on contemporary thinking about the medium. Many contemporary artists--most prominently Penelope Umbrico, Michael Flomen, and Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin--reject classic definitions of photography's documentary dimension in favor of other conceptually inflected possibilities, somewhere between painting and sculpture, that include the manipulation of process and printing. In addition to Rexer's engagingly written and richly illustrated history, this volume includes a selection of primary texts from and interviews with key practitioners and critics, such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, László Moholy-Nagy, Gottfried Jägger, Silvio Wolf and Walead Beshty.

"In At the Edges of Vision, Renee van de Vall re-examines the aesthetics of spectatorship in terms of new-media art and visual culture. The aesthetic experience of visual art has traditionally been described in terms of the distanced contemplation and critical interpretation of the work's form and representational content. Recent developments in installation, video and computer art have foregrounded the bodily and affective engagement of the spectator and, in retrospect, throw into question the model of spectatorial distance for more traditional art forms as well. But what does this development entail for art's potential for reflective, imaginative and experiential depth? Is art still capable of providing a critical counterpoint to the ubiquitous presence of sensational, yet short-lived media imagery when it speaks to the senses rather than to the mind? In a thorough examination of examples from painting, film, installation art and interactive video, and computer art, Van de Vall argues for a tactile and affective conception of reflection, linking philosophy and art. Looking at a Rembrandt self-portrait and navigating through an internet art work have in common that both types of work rely on a playful, rhythmically structured, sensuous and embodied reflexivity for the articulation of meaning. This sensuous dimension of playful reflexivity is just as important in philosophical thought, however, as the transcendental condition for genuine, open-ended reflection. Drawing on the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Lyotard and Deleuze on the one hand and on new-media theory on the other, Van de Vall develops a performative phenomenology of aesthetic reflection, visuality and visual art, in order to rethink art's ethical and political relevance in present-day digital-media culture."--Provided by publisher.

The advent of photography revolutionized perception, making visible what was once impossible to see with the human eye. In At the Edge of Sight, Shawn Michelle Smith engages these dynamics of seeing and not seeing, focusing attention as much on absence as presence, on the invisible as the visible. Exploring the limits of photography and vision, she asks: What fails to register photographically, and what remains beyond the frame? What is hidden by design, and what is obscured by cultural blindness? Smith studies manifestations of photography's brush with the unseen in her own photographic work and across the wide-ranging images of early American photographers, including F. Holland Day, Eadweard Muybridge, Andrew J. Russell, Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, and Augustus Washington. She concludes by showing how concerns raised in the nineteenth century remain pertinent today in the photographs of Abu Ghraib. Ultimately, Smith explores the capacity of photography to reveal what remains beyond the edge of sight.

This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books. The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.

The classic reference covering the diagnosis and treatment of all major ophthalmic diseases, as well as neurological and systemic diseases causing visual disturbance-extensively revised and updated Features State-of-the-art coverage of diagnostic techniques and therapeutic interventions for the full range of ophthalmic disorders Chapters dedicated to ophthalmic therapeutics, neuro-ophthalmology, ocular disorders associated with systemic diseases, immunologic diseases of the eye, pediatrics, genetics, preventive ophthalmology and lasers The latest clinical perspectives on such topics as: Treatments for age-related macular degeneration, including anti-VEGF therapies Intraocular steroid injections for retinal diseases Immunomodulatory drugs Treatment of corneal infections Medical and surgical treatments for glaucoma Detailed appendices on visual standards, practical factors in illumination, rehabilitation of the visually handicapped, and special services available to the blind Latest references

Vision Sensors and Edge Detection book reflects a selection of recent developments within the area of vision sensors and edge detection. There are two sections in this book. The first section presents vision sensors with applications to panoramic vision sensors, wireless vision sensors, and automated vision sensor inspection, and the second one shows image processing techniques, such as, image measurements, image transformations, filtering, and parallel computing.

Available again, an influential book that offers a framework for understanding visual perception and considers fundamental questions about the brain and its functions. David Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field. In Vision, Marr describes a general framework for understanding visual perception and touches on broader questions about how the brain and its functions can be studied and understood. Researchers from a range of brain and cognitive sciences have long valued Marr's creativity, intellectual power, and ability to integrate insights and data from neuroscience, psychology, and computation. This MIT Press edition makes Marr's influential work available to a new generation of students and scientists. In Marr's framework, the process of vision constructs a set of representations, starting from a description of the input image and culminating with a description of three-dimensional objects in the surrounding environment. A central theme, and one that has had far-reaching influence in both neuroscience and cognitive science, is the notion of different levels of analysis—in Marr's framework, the computational level, the algorithmic level, and the hardware implementation level. Now, thirty years later, the main problems that occupied Marr remain fundamental open problems in the study of perception. Vision provides inspiration for the continuing efforts to integrate knowledge from cognition and computation to understand vision and the brain.