A groundbreaking reevaluation of paleolithic art through the lens of modernism, from the acclaimed historian of art and architecture In The Beginnings of Art, Sigfried Giedion, best known as a historian of architecture, shifts his attention to art and its very origins. Breaking with an earlier, materialistic approach, he explores paleolithic art by bringing abstraction, transparency, and simultaneity into play as modern art has revealed them anew. Focusing on the dual concepts of constancy and change, he examines paleolithic paintings, engravings, and sculpture, as well as modern art and recent examples of “primitive art.” He argues that the two keys to the meaning of prehistoric art are the symbol, portraying reality before reality exists, and the animal as humankind’s superior in the unified primordial world in which both human and animal were embedded. The result is a highly original and important study of prehistoric art.

An original account of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian architecture from the acclaimed architectural historian In The Beginnings of Architecture, Sigfried Giedion examines the architecture of ancient Egypt and Sumer. These early builders expressed an attitude of immense force when they confronted their structures with open sky. Giedion argues that it was during these periods that the problem of constancy and change flared up with an intensity unknown in any other period of history, and resolved eventually into the first architectural space conception, the automatic, psychic recording of the visual environment.

Music is played and heard in time, yet it is also embodied in space by musical scores. The observation of a musical score turns time into space and allows musicians to embrace the flow of time in a single glance. This experience constitutes a symbol for the Eternal Present, the simultaneous knowledge of all time outside time. This book analyzes the implications of this view through a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, linking theology, philosophy, literature, and music. It also studies how this theme has been foreshadowed in the writings of Dante and J. R. R. Tolkien, demonstrating the connections between their masterpieces and the aesthetics of their times. The result is a fascinating itinerary through the history of culture, thought, and music, but also a deeply theological and spiritual experience.

You have arrived in Heaven—the Ultimate Reality. You are busy greeting all the old friends and acquaintances, that passed on ahead of you. It’s like Pleasant Sunday Afternoons on steroids—and non-stop. Coffee and doughnuts for everyone—just like Sunday School. All are chatting about the “good old days”. What could be more wonderful? But then you become aware of a little kid, standing off to one side, seeming to be lost. Oh, he’ll be OK. But he doesn’t go away, and you start to feel a bit guilty—but you can’t do anything as he doesn’t speak your language. Then you discover, this is from the slums of Calcutta—what can you say to him? A mere 2-year-old. He has never had a cup of coffee—let alone a doughnut, or even one decent meal in his entire life. But by the grace of God he is there—and no doubt many others like him. Hovering to one side, cowering behind some large potted plants, is a bedraggled woman. Further enquiries reveal that she is a survivor from the Holocaust—the subject of abuse and repeated raping. Will you invite her to join your happy little group? Welcome her to the friends that you are preoccupied with? What will you say to her—if you can understand her language? Let us not be unmindful of these precious souls for whom Christ died—and who are now in Heaven—the Ultimate Reality. They are just as important in God’s eyes, as we are. Even if we don’t understand their language or culture, and have never experienced anything remotely like their totally impoverished lives. * * * * * It is scenarios like this that motivated the writing of this book, and that shook me deeply about my own prejudices and presuppositions. * * * * *

RES 63/64 includes "Source and trace" by Christopher S. Wood; "Timelessness, fluidity, and Apollo's libation" by Milette Gaifman; "A liquid history: Blood and animation in late medieval art" by Beate Fricke; "Guercino's 'wet' drawing" by Nicola Suthor; "The readymade metabolized: Fluxus in life" by David Joselit; and other papers.

How new conceptions of human–environment interaction became central to design theories and practices in the 1970s At the end of the 1960s, new models of responsiveness between humans and their environments had a profound impact on theories and practices in architecture, design, art, technology, media, and the sciences. The resulting initiatives—design philosophies, art installations, architectural projects, exhibitions, publications, and symposia—sought to bring together insights from biology, systems theory, psychology, and anthropology with modernist legacies of total design. In The Responsive Environment, Larry D. Busbea takes up this concept of environment as an object and method of design at the height of its aesthetic, technical, and discursive elaboration. Exploring emerging paradigms of environmental perception, patterning, and control as developed by Gregory Bateson, Edward T. Hall, Wolf Hilbertz, György Kepes, Marshall McLuhan, Nicholas Negroponte, Paolo Soleri, and others, he shows how living space itself was reimagined as a domain capable of modification through input from its newly sensitized inhabitants. The Responsive Environment intercuts the development of new ideas about environmental awareness with case studies of specific architecture and design projects for responsive environments. Throughout, Busbea connects these theories and practices to the contemporary obsession with “smart” things: responsive technologies, intelligent environments, biomimetic materials, and digital atmospherics.