What begins with an unlikely collection of unrelated phenomena--mechanical dolls, weather, atoms, lyric poetry--blossoms in the course of Toy Medium into a subtle and persuasive meditation on one of Western philosophy's biggest puzzles: the relation of mind and matter. What is the role of the imagination in defining material substance? In a dazzling study of the poetics of materialist philosophy and of the materialism of lyric poetry, Daniel Tiffany traces the historical conjunction of matter and metaphor through a remarkable range of topics: automata in classical antiquity and the eighteenth century; Kepler's treatise on snowflakes; animal magnetism; fireworks and cloud-chamber photographs; the origins of the microscope as a philosophical toy and its bearing on the figure of the virtuoso. At critical junctures in modern Western culture, Tiffany finds uncanny parallels between the metaphorics of science and visions of material substance rooted in popular culture and lyric poetry. Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000

"In this bold, speculative, and immensely learned study . . . Tiffany[‘s concept of] lyric substance--the ‘sense’ of materiality supplied to us by poets like Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore--constitutes a world whose inaccessibility is legitimized by the principles of scientific materialism. Thus lyric, too long on the periphery of materialist discourse, emerges as being squarely in its center."—Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University, author of The Futurist Moment and Wittgenstein’s Ladder "A lyrical inquiry into the circle of ideas: materialism, science, poetics. Winding through the whole is a fascinating exploration of toys--children’s toys, physicists’ toy models, philosophers’ robots, nuclear weaponeers’ toy towns. . . . My hope is that this book will contribute to a growing interest not in cleaving science from the arts but rather in exploring, poetically, the language, images and things that illuminate both." —Peter Galison, Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and Physics, Harvard University "A brilliant achievement, synthesizing the history of science and poetics, technology and the arts, in an iconology of materialism. . . All that is solid melts into air in this book, but just as quickly the airy poems of our climate condense into material, objective forms, weird gadgets, and objects of scientific research. . . A wonderful feast of learning and wit." —W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago, author of Picture Theory and Iconology "In clear-eyed and gorgeous prose, Toy Medium moves the question of Art's encounter with Science to an utterly original point of conflagration: where matter is mostly not matter. . . . Going to the bottom of the Imagination, where it still truly involves images, Tiffany explores how we have learned to see the inscrutable via our imagistic grasp of materiality. . . . This book is daring, brilliant, and deeply clever."—Jorie Graham, Boylston Professor of English, Harvard University, author of Materialism and winner of the Pulitzer Prize

This book investigates a paradox of creative yet scripted play—how LEGO invites players to build ‘freely’ with and within its highly structured, ideologically-laden toy system. First, this book considers theories and methods for deconstructing LEGO as a medium of bricolage, the creative reassembly of already-significant elements. Then, it pieces together readings of numerous LEGO sets, advertisements, videogames, films, and other media that show how LEGO constructs five ideologies of play: construction play, dramatic play, digital play, transmedia play, and attachment play. From suburban traffic patterns to architectural croissants, from feminized mini-doll bodies to toys-to-life stories, from virtual construction to playful fan creations, this book explores how the LEGO medium conveys ideological messages—not by transmitting clear statements but by providing implicit instructions for how to reassemble meanings it had all along.

A wide-ranging look at surrealist and postsurrealist engagements with the culture and imagery of childhood We all have memories of the object-world of childhood. For many of us, playthings and images from those days continue to resonate. Rereading a swathe of modern and contemporary artistic production through the lens of its engagement with childhood, this book blends in-depth art historical analysis with sustained theoretical exploration of topics such as surrealist temporality, toys, play, nostalgia, memory, and 20th-century constructions of the child. The result is an entirely new approach to the surrealist tradition via its engagement with "childish things." Providing what the author describes as a "long history of surrealism," this book plots a trajectory from surrealism itself to the art of the 1980s and 1990s, through to the present day. It addresses a range of figures from Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Joseph Cornell, and Helen Levitt, at one end of the spectrum, to Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Paolozzi, Claes Oldenburg, Susan Hiller, Martin Sharp, Helen Chadwick, Mike Kelley, and Jeff Koons, at the other.

This companion presents the newest research in this important area, showcasing the huge diversity in children’s relationships with digital media around the globe, and exploring the benefits, challenges, history, and emerging developments in the field. Children are finding novel ways to express their passions and priorities through innovative uses of digital communication tools. This collection investigates and critiques the dynamism of children's lives online with contributions fielding both global and hyper-local issues, and bridging the wide spectrum of connected media created for and by children. From education to children's rights to cyberbullying and youth in challenging circumstances, the interdisciplinary approach ensures a careful, nuanced, multi-dimensional exploration of children’s relationships with digital media. Featuring a highly international range of case studies, perspectives, and socio-cultural contexts, The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children is the perfect reference tool for students and researchers of media and communication, family and technology studies, psychology, education, anthropology, and sociology, as well as interested teachers, policy makers, and parents.

"Explores a significant but overlooked aspect of early twentieth-century modernism, one that focuses on surface appearance rather than interiority or psychological depth. Looks at the writers Wyndham Lewis and Mina Loy, the artists Balthus and Hans Bellmer, and the fashion designer Coco Chanel"--Provided by publisher.

As audiences are increasingly no longer solely listeners but also active producer-consumers, and as video games and other interactive systems increasingly permeate our daily lives, understanding interactivity and its impact on the audience has never been more important. A collection of newly commissioned chapters on interactivity in music and sound edited by preeminent scholars in the field, this book marks the beginning of a journey into understanding the ways in which we interact with sound, and offers a new set of analytical tools for the growing field of interactive audio. What does it mean to interact with sound? How does interactivity alter our experience as creators and listeners? What makes interactive audio different from non-interactive audio? Where does interacting with audio fit into our understanding of sound and music? What does the future hold for interactive media when it comes to our musical and sonic experiences? And how do we begin to approach interactive audio from a theoretical perspective? The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio answers these questions by exploring the full range of interactive audio in video games, performance, education, environmental design, toys, and artistic practice. Examining these questions from a range of approaches -- technological, emotional, psychological, and physical -- the book provides a thorough overview of the fascinating experience of interactive sound.