Description
Book SynopsisWe've all had the experience of watching a film and feeling like we've been in a trance. This book takes that experience seriously, explaining cinema as a cultural technique of trance, one that unconsciously transforms our perceptions. Ute Holl moves from anthropological and experimental cinema through nineteenth-century psychological laboratories, which she shows developed techniques for testing, measuring, and classifying the mind that can be seen as a prehistory of cinema, one that allows us to see the links among cinema, anthropology, psychology, and cybernetics.
Trade Review"
Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics will change the way you see the cinema's past. Through an impressive synthesis of psychology, cybernetics, anthropology and the cinematic arts, it reveals how cinema was born in the scientific laboratory and grew into a machine for controlling, but also emancipating, mental life. Providing a powerful historical account that brings Maya Deren in contact with Vladimir Bekhterev, amongst others, the book shows how cinema ultimately came to shape us into its own image." -
Pasi Valiaho, Goldsmiths, University of LondonTable of ContentsForeword: Fade into Black by Pasi Valiaho Preface to the English Translation of Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics In the Beginning 1.1 Cinema 1.2 Cybernetics 1.3 Knots 1.4 To Whom it May Concern 2.1 Discretions Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead: Ball, New York 2.2 Depersonalizations Maya Deren: Hollywood, Haiti 2.3 Deviations Jean Rouch: Accra, Paris 2.4 Compressions Albert Londe: Paris, Paris 3.1 Mental Apparatuses 3.1.1 Experimenting 3.1.2 Shocking 3.1.3 Registering 3.1.4 Going Wild 3.1.5 Resonating 3.1.6 Rhythmizing 3.2 Psyco-Motor Activity 3.3 Psycho-Drama 3.4 Psycho-Technology 3.5 Psycho-Reflexology 3.5.1 Feelings and Emotions 3.5.2 The Ends of Paranoia 3.5.3 Personality Changes 3.5.4 Ways of Behaving 3.5.5 Nerve Priming 3.5.6 Reflex Arcs 3.5.7 Media or Homeostatic Processes 4.1 The Truth Won by Means of Film 4.1.1 Signals 4.1.2 Agitations 4.1.3 Explosions 4.1.4 Intervals 4.1.5 Experiences 4.1.6 Centers or Centrifuges 5. After All: Return to Receiver Bibliography Index
