Into the Image : Culture and Politics in the Field of Vision

Into the Image examines visual technology sociologically and, in so doing, rejects the fashionable idea that the new visual technologies are displacing the real. "Into the Image is concerned with the significance of screen and image in contemporary society, and with the nature of our imaginary and psychic investments in visual culture. It considers modern image technologies as means to monitor and survey the world, whilst at the same time maintaining distance and detachment from it. In the coverage of contemporary war, we see most clearly how the world is screened and yet its reality screened out. Into the Image also reflects on the contemporary desire to create an alternative world by means of new image technologies. It asks what is behind the fantasies of migrating into an alternative, virtual reality." "Critical of the dominant technoculture, this book seeks to develop an alternative approach to visual culture based in the realities of the contemporary social order. In its exploration of culture and politics in the field of vision, Into the Image acknowledges the continuing significance of the 'old' technologies of photography, cinema and television alongside that of the new digital developments. The crucial issues, it argues, concern the relation of image and screen culture to experience in the modern world."--Résumé de l'éditeur Nous sommes constamment dit que nous vivons une révolution de l'image. Dans cette exploration de la politique de la culture visuelle, Kevin Robins évalue la nature de notre investissement émotionnel et imaginaire dans les médias visuels, de la photographie à la réalité virtuelle. Il examine comment les technologies de l'image modernes nous permettent de surveiller et d'enquête dans le monde "réel", tout en maintenant une distance qui nie en quelque sorte sa réalité, et il demande à ce que les pressions se cachent derrière les fantasmes utopiques du cyberespace avec ses réalités alternatives et les communautés virtuelles. Plutôt que d'accepter l'idée à la mode que les nouvelles technologies visuels supplantent le réel, à l'image examine les sociologiquement, comme façonnée par des forces et des événements dans le monde réel, et démontre que ce qui continue d'affaire est la relation entre l'image et la culture de l'écran pour la façon dont nous interagissons avec ce monde An unorthodox exploration of the politics of visual culture, Into the Image offers a skeptical and more sociological account of image technologies, linking the development of these technologies to contemporary culture.

Kevin Robins assesses the nature of our emotional and imaginary investment in visual media, from the "old" technologies of photography, cinema and television to the new digital developments such as virtual reality. He asks what pressures lie behind the utopian fantasies of cyberspace with its alternative realities and virtual communities. Rather than accepting the fashionable idea that the new visual technologies are replacing the real, Into the Image examines them sociologically, as shaped by forces and events in the real world. "Robins assesses the nature of our emotional and imaginary investment in the visual media, from photography to virtual reality. He looks at how modern image technologies allow us to monitor and survey the 'real' world while maintaining a distance that somehow denies its reality, and he asks what pressures lie behind the utopian fantasies of cyberspace with its alternative realities and virtual communities."--Back cover First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. Kevin Robins. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.