A01=Spyros Papapetros
aby warburg
aesthetics
alois riegl
animation
anthropomorphism
architecture
art
Author_Spyros Papapetros
automobiles
Category=ABA
Category=AGA
Category=AM
cinematography
emotions
empathy
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fernand leger
inanimate objects
innovation
inorganic life
intelligence
interaction
language
machines
mies van der rohe
modernism
modernity
nature
nonfiction
philosophy
projection
robot
salvador dali
secularism
simulated movement
skyscrapers
souls
technology
wilhelm worringer
Product details
- ISBN 9780226645681
- Weight: 964g
- Dimensions: 20 x 26mm
- Publication Date: 27 Jul 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Throughout human history, people have imagined inanimate objects to have intelligence, language, and even souls. In our secular societies today, we still willingly believe that nonliving objects have lives of their own as we find ourselves interacting with computers and other equipment. In "On the Animation of the Inorganic", Spyros Papapetros examines ideas about simulated movement and inorganic life during and after the turn of the twentieth century - a period of great technical innovation whose effects continue to reverberate today. Exploring key works of art historians such as Aby Warburg, Wilhelm Worringer, and Alois Riegl, as well as architects and artists like Fernand Leger, Mies van der Rohe, and Salvador Dali, Papapetros tracks the evolution of the problem of animation from the fin de siecle through the twentieth century. He argues that empathy - the ability to identify with objects of the external world - was repressed by twentieth-century modernist culture, but it returned, projected onto inorganic objects such as machines, automobiles, and crystal-line skyscrapers.
These modern artifacts, he demonstrates, vibrated with energy, life, and desire of their own and had profound effects on people. Subtle and insightful, this beautifully illustrated book will change how we view modernist art, architecture, and their histories.
Spyros Papapetros is assistant professor of history and theory in the School of Architecture and the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University.
