Exhibition catalog, Frey Norris Gallery Annex, San Francisco, Feb. 7-Mar. 30, 2008.

Originally published: New York: Viking, 1984.

James stands alone, high on a Scottish hillside. He stares down at a massive, three-toed footprint...and the crushed animal within it. Is the creature that formed it responsible for James's father's sudden and unexplained disappearance?Isolated in his belief that something terrible has befallen his dad, James finally finds someone prepared to help him: Mendel - a wizard from another worldwho is trapped in the body of a goldfish. Mendel and James do a deal: James will help Mendel back to his own world - Denthan - before disaster befalls it; in return, Mendel will help James find his father. James and his best friend Craig are soon drawn into a dying world full of hideous monsters and a race of human-like creatures called Manimals. James comes to realise that Denthan can only be saved if he finds a magical talisman in time. But time is not something Denthan has. And he doesn't even know what he's looking for. And it's not only the inhabitants of this strange other world who are at risk. Unbeknownst to James, his mixed-up mother and half the village have followed them to Denthan. Can James find the Talisman in time? Is his father in Denthan too? And can he save a whole world and everyone he loves?

This volume includes the editorial “The absconded subject of Pop,” by Thomas Crow; “Enlivening the soul in Chinese tombs,” by Wu Hung; “On the ‘true body’ of Huineng,” by Michele Matteini; “Apparition painting,” by Yukio Lippit; “Immanence out of sight,” by Joyce Cheng; “Absconding in plain sight,” by Roberta Bonetti; “Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen,” by Megan E. O’Neil; “Style and substance, or why the Cacaxtla paintings were buried,” by Claudia Brittenham; “The Parthenon frieze,” by Clemente Marconi; “Roma sotterranea and the biogenesis of New Jerusalem,” by Irina Oryshkevich; “Out of sight, yet still in place,” by Minou Schraven; “Behind closed doors,” by Melissa R. Katz; “Moving eyes,” by Bissera V. Pentcheva; “‘A secret kind of charm not to be expressed or discerned,’” by Rebecca Zorach; “Ivory towers,” by Richard Taws; “Boxed in,” by Miranda Lash; “A concrete experience of nothing,” by William S. Smith; “Believing in art,” by Irene V. Small; “Repositories of the unconditional,” by Gabriele Guercio; “From micro/macrocosm to the aesthetics of ruins and waste-bodies,” by Jeanette Zwingenberger; “Are shadows transparent?” by Roberto Casati; “Invisibility of the digital,” by Boris Groys; “Des formes et des catégories,” by Remo Guidieri; and “Further comments on ‘Absconding,’” by Francesco Pellizzi.

Following the previous OWLS conferences devoted to optics in life sciences, the 5th Conference focused on recent achievements in applying lasers and optics in biomedicine and in the preservation of our cultural heritage. Particular attention is thus paid to laser diagnostics in medicine, interaction of laser radiation with biological tissue, and the development of new systems for these studies. The contributors to this volume cover such international research activities as photon migration in tissue, fibre optics, lasers in dermatology, ENT, cardiology, and in art conservation, imaging techniques in archaeology, laser technologies in contemporary art, and new laser and opto-electronic systems for biomedical and art-related studies.