Summary: The present publication offers a broad overview of works from one of the most dynamic and vital movements in Latin-America: geometric abstraction. The Fontanais-Cisneros Collection - specialized in contemporary art - provides the opportunity to revisit the period between 1930 and 1970 through a selection from its holdings of works that reflect this creative movement, which is still little known internationally.

Reshapes the history of abstract animation and its importance to computer imagery and cinema Animation and technology are always changing with one another. From hand-drawn flipbooks to stop-motion and computer-generated imagery (CGI), animation’s identity is in flux. But many of these moving image technologies, like CGI, emerged from the world of animation. Indeed, animation has made essential contributions to not only computer imagery but also cinema, helping shape them into the fields and media forms we know today. In Pulses of Abstraction, Andrew R. Johnston presents both a revealing history of abstract animation and an investigation into the relationship between animation and cinema. Examining a rich array of techniques—including etching directly onto the filmstrip, immersive colored-light spectacles, rapid montage sequences, and digital programming—Pulses of Abstraction uncovers important epistemological shifts around film and related media. Just as animation’s images pulse in projection, so too does its history of indexing technological and epistemic changes through experiments with form, material, and aesthetics. Focusing on a period of rapid media change from the 1950s to the 1970s, this book combines close readings of experimental animations with in-depth technological studies, revealing how animation helped image culture come to terms with the rise of information technologies.

L'artiste native de Cuba Carmen Herrera (née en 1915) peint depuis plus de sept décennies, mais ce n'est que ces dernières années que la reconnaissance pour son travail a projeté l'artiste vers la notoriété internationale. Ce beau volume offre le premier examen soutenu d'elle, depuis le début de sa carrière en 1948 jusqu'en 1978, et s'étend sur les mondes de l'art de La Havane, de Paris et de New York. Les essais considèrent les premières études de l'artiste à Cuba, son implication dans le Salon des Réalités Nouvelles dans le Paris d'après-guerre et sa sortie révolutionnaire de New York. Puis l'ouvrage situe son travail dans le contexte d'un art d'avant-garde latino-américain plus large. Un essai de Dana Miller considère le travail de New York d'Herrera depuis les années 1950 jusque dans les années 1970, lorsque Herrera arrivait et perfectionnait son style de signature. Des photographies familiales personnelles des archives de Herrera enrichissent le récit, et une chronologie traitant de l'intégralité de sa vie et de sa carrière présente des images documentaires supplémentaires. Plus de quatre-vingts œuvres sont illustrées sous forme de plaques de couleur. Ce livre est la représentation la plus étendue des travaux de Herrera à ce jour. (d'après l'éditeur).

Pulse is not about dance music, not about heart rates—and not about electromagnetic fields. What it does describe is a sea change in human affairs, a vast and fundamental shift that is about to transform every aspect of our lives. Written in lively prose for lay readers, Pulse shows how ideas that have shaped Western science, industry, and culture for centuries are being displaced by the rapid and dramatic rise of a "new biology"—by human systems and machines that work like living things. In Pulse, Robert Frenay details the coming world of • emotional computers • ships that swim like fish • hard, soft, and wet artificial life • money that mimics the energy flows in nature • evolution at warp speed And these are not blue-sky dreams. By using hundreds of vivid and concrete examples of cutting-edge work, Frenay showcases the brilliant innovations and often colorful personalities now giving birth to a radical new future. Along the way, he also offers thoughtful conclusions on the promises—and dangers—of our transformation to the next great phase of "human cultural evolution."