Animal, Vegetable, Digital

Experiments in New Media Aesthetics and Environmental Poetics

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Books & Reading, Nonfiction, Computers
Cover of the book Animal, Vegetable, Digital by Elizabeth Swanstrom, University of Alabama Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Elizabeth Swanstrom ISBN: 9780817389291
Publisher: University of Alabama Press Publication: January 20, 2016
Imprint: University Alabama Press Language: English
Author: Elizabeth Swanstrom
ISBN: 9780817389291
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Publication: January 20, 2016
Imprint: University Alabama Press
Language: English

Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize in American Literature

In Animal, Vegetable, Digital, Elizabeth Swanstrom makes a confident and spirited argument for the use of digital art in support of ameliorating human engagement with the environment and suggests a four-part framework for analyzing and discussing such applications.
 
Through close readings of a panoply of texts, artworks, and cultural artifacts, Swanstrom demonstrates that the division popular culture has for decades observed between nature and technology is artificial. Not only is digital technology not necessarily a brick in the road to a dystopian future of environmental disaster, but digital art forms can be a revivifying bridge that returns people to a more immediate relationship to nature as well as their own embodied selves.
 
To analyze and understand the intersection of digital art and nature, Animal, Vegetable, Digital explores four aesthetic techniques: coding, collapsing, corresponding, and conserving. “Coding” denotes the way artists use operational computer code to blur distinctions between the reader and text, and, hence, the world. Inviting a fluid conception of the boundary between human and technology, “collapsing” voids simplistic assumptions about the human body’s innate perimeter. The process of translation between natural and human-readable signs that enables communication is described as “corresponding.” “Conserving” is the application of digital art by artists to democratize large- and small-scale preservation efforts.
 
A fascinating synthesis of literary criticism, communications and journalism, science and technology, and rhetoric that draws on such disparate phenomena as simulated environments, video games, and popular culture, Animal, Vegetable, Digital posits that partnerships between digital aesthetics and environmental criticism are possible that reconnect humankind to nature and reaffirm its kinship with other living and nonliving things.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize in American Literature

In Animal, Vegetable, Digital, Elizabeth Swanstrom makes a confident and spirited argument for the use of digital art in support of ameliorating human engagement with the environment and suggests a four-part framework for analyzing and discussing such applications.
 
Through close readings of a panoply of texts, artworks, and cultural artifacts, Swanstrom demonstrates that the division popular culture has for decades observed between nature and technology is artificial. Not only is digital technology not necessarily a brick in the road to a dystopian future of environmental disaster, but digital art forms can be a revivifying bridge that returns people to a more immediate relationship to nature as well as their own embodied selves.
 
To analyze and understand the intersection of digital art and nature, Animal, Vegetable, Digital explores four aesthetic techniques: coding, collapsing, corresponding, and conserving. “Coding” denotes the way artists use operational computer code to blur distinctions between the reader and text, and, hence, the world. Inviting a fluid conception of the boundary between human and technology, “collapsing” voids simplistic assumptions about the human body’s innate perimeter. The process of translation between natural and human-readable signs that enables communication is described as “corresponding.” “Conserving” is the application of digital art by artists to democratize large- and small-scale preservation efforts.
 
A fascinating synthesis of literary criticism, communications and journalism, science and technology, and rhetoric that draws on such disparate phenomena as simulated environments, video games, and popular culture, Animal, Vegetable, Digital posits that partnerships between digital aesthetics and environmental criticism are possible that reconnect humankind to nature and reaffirm its kinship with other living and nonliving things.

More books from University of Alabama Press

Cover of the book The Remembered Gate by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Foraging in the Tennessee River Valley by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Expectation by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The Politics of Trust by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The Archaeology of Town Creek by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The House by the Side of the Road by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book To Command the Sky by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Grounded Vision by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Writing Religion by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The Great War in the Heart of Dixie by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Coming Out of War by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book The Land Was Theirs by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Memories of Two Generations by Elizabeth Swanstrom
Cover of the book Sugar Cane Capitalism and Environmental Transformation by Elizabeth Swanstrom
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy