The Machine In The Garden

Author : Eric Erbacher
Publisher : Campus Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3593501910
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rereading the Machine in the Garden written by Eric Erbacher and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume reexamines the trope of the intrusive machine and the regenerative pastoral garden, laid out fifty years ago by Leo Marx in The Machine in the Garden, one of the founding texts of American Studies. Contributions explore the lasting influence of the trope in American culture and the arts, rereading it as a dialectics where nature is as much technologized as technology is naturalized. They trace this dialectic trope in filmic and literary representations of industrial, bureaucratic, and digital gardens; they explore its function in the aftermath of the civil war, the rural electrification during the New Deal, in landscape art, and in ethnic literatures; and they discuss the historical premises and lasting influence of Leo Marx's seminal study.

Author : Helen M. Rozwadowski
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780881353723
Total Pages : 408 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Machine in Neptune's Garden written by Helen M. Rozwadowski and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Claus Emmeche
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069122515X
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Garden in the Machine written by Claus Emmeche and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is life? Is it just the biologically familiar--birds, trees, snails, people--or is it an infinitely complex set of patterns that a computer could simulate? What role does intelligence play in separating the organic from the inorganic, the living from the inert? Does life evolve along a predestined path, or does it suddenly emerge from what appeared lifeless and programmatic? In this easily accessible and wide-ranging survey, Claus Emmeche outlines many of the challenges and controversies involved in the dynamic and curious science of artificial life. Emmeche describes the work being done by an international network of biologists, computer scientists, and physicists who are using computers to study life as it could be, or as it might evolve under conditions different from those on earth. Many artificial-life researchers believe that they can create new life in the computer by simulating the processes observed in traditional, biological life-forms. The flight of a flock of birds, for example, can be reproduced faithfully and in all its complexity by a relatively simple computer program that is designed to generate electronic "boids." Are these "boids" then alive? The central problem, Emmeche notes, lies in defining the salient differences between biological life and computer simulations of its processes. And yet, if we can breathe life into a computer, what might this mean for our other assumptions about what it means to be alive? The Garden in the Machine touches on every aspect of this complex and rapidly developing discipline, including its connections to artificial intelligence, chaos theory, computational theory, and studies of emergence. Drawing on the most current work in the field, this book is a major overview of artificial life. Professionals and nonscientists alike will find it an invaluable guide to concepts and technologies that may forever change our definition of life.

Author : Leo Marx
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195133516
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Machine in the Garden written by Leo Marx and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining the difference between pastoral and progressive ideals that characterised early 20th century American culture, the author shows how American thinkers have considered the relationship between technology and culture in their writings.

Author : Scott MacDonald
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520227385
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Garden in the Machine written by Scott MacDonald and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-12-18 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is MacDonald's magnum opus: it represents a deep immersion in and advocacy for independent, experimental cinema."—Patricia R. Zimmerman, author of States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies "This is a brilliant study--learned, authoritative, and often eloquent. One reads this book with astonishment at the wealth of thoughtful and playful and provocative work that has occurred in this medium--and astonishment too that most scholars of environmental literature and nature in the visual arts have had minimal contact with independent film and video. MacDonald provides an immensely valuable, readable overview of this field, profoundly relevant to my own work and that of many other contemporary ecocritics."—Scott Slovic, editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment "The Garden in the Machine is clearly MacDonald's major work. It is very original and wide reaching especially in its analysis of the relationship of American avant-garde films to the poetry and painting of the native landscape. MacDonald's authority is evident everywhere: he probably knows more about most of the films he discusses than anyone alive."—P. Adams Sitney, author of Modernist Montage : The Obscurity of Vision in Cinema and Literature "The Garden in the Machine reflects Scott MacDonald's career-long lived engagement with avant-garde film and filmmakers. With deep respect for the artists and a rich, wide-ranging curiosity about the cultural histories that inform these films, MacDonald makes a powerful argument for why they should be screened, taught, and discussed within the wider context of American Studies. Throughout, MacDonald analyzes themes of race, history, personal and public memory, and the central role of avant-garde films in shaping our possible futures."—Angela Miller, author of Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and American Cultural Politics, 1825-1875

Author : Leo Marx
Publisher : New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780195048759
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.5X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Pilot and the Passenger written by Leo Marx and published by New York : Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this insightful, provocative collection of essays, one of America's most astute cultural critics explores the interplay among literature, technology, and politics in the United States.

Author : Paul Davies
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241309603
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Demon in the Machine written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

Author : Philip Steadman
Publisher : UCL Press
ISBN 13 : 1787359158
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Renaissance Fun written by Philip Steadman and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renaissance Fun is about the technology of Renaissance entertainments in stage machinery and theatrical special effects; in gardens and fountains; and in the automata and self-playing musical instruments that were installed in garden grottoes. How did the machines behind these shows work? How exactly were chariots filled with singers let down onto the stage? How were flaming dragons made to fly across the sky? How were seas created on stage? How did mechanical birds imitate real birdsong? What was ‘artificial music’, three centuries before Edison and the phonograph? How could pipe organs be driven and made to play themselves by waterpower alone? And who were the architects, engineers, and craftsmen who created these wonders? All these questions are answered. At the end of the book we visit the lost ‘garden of marvels’ at Pratolino with its many grottoes, automata and water jokes; and we attend the performance of Mercury and Mars in Parma in 1628, with its spectacular stage effects and its music by Claudio Monteverdi – one of the places where opera was born. Renaissance Fun is offered as an entertainment in itself. But behind the show is a more serious scholarly argument, centred on the enormous influence of two ancient writers on these subjects, Vitruvius and Hero. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture were widely studied by Renaissance theatre designers. Hero of Alexandria wrote the Pneumatics, a collection of designs for surprising and entertaining devices that were the models for sixteenth and seventeenth century automata. A second book by Hero On Automata-Making – much less well known, then and now – describes two miniature theatres that presented plays without human intervention. One of these, it is argued, provided the model for the type of proscenium theatre introduced from the mid-sixteenth century, the generic design which is still built today. As the influence of Vitruvius waned, the influence of Hero grew.

Author : James Carse
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451657293
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Finite and Infinite Games written by James Carse and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There are at least two kinds of games,” states James Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other infinite.” Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end. What are infinite games? How do they affect the ways we play our finite games? What are we doing when we play—finitely or infinitely? And how can infinite games affect the ways in which we live our lives? Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world—from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion—leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything from how an actress portrays a role, to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil, to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory. But infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander. Carse has written a book rich in insight and aphorism. Already an international literary event, Finite and Infinite Games is certain to be argued about and celebrated for years to come. Reading it is the first step in learning to play the infinite game.

Author : Julie Wosk
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN 13 : 0801877814
Total Pages : 636 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Women and the Machine written by Julie Wosk and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An engaging study of the ways women and machines have been represented in art, photography, advertising, and literature.” —Arwen Palmer Mohun, University of Delaware From sexist jokes about women drivers to such empowering icons as Amelia Earhart and Rosie the Riveter, representations of the relationship between women and modern technology in popular culture have been both demeaning and celebratory. Depictions of women as timid and fearful creatures baffled by machinery have alternated with images of them as being fully capable of technological mastery and control—and of lending sex appeal to machines as products. In Women and the Machine, historian Julie Wosk maps the contradictory ways in which women’s interactions with—and understanding of—machinery has been defined in Western popular culture since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Drawing on both visual and literary sources, Wosk illuminates popular gender stereotypes that have burdened women throughout modern history while underscoring their advances in what was long considered the domain of men. Illustrated with more than 150 images, Women and the Machine reveals women rejoicing in their new liberties and technical skill even as they confront society’s ambivalence about these developments, along with male fantasies and fears. “Engaging and entertaining . . . Using illustrations, cartoons and photographs from the past three centuries, Wosk delineates shifts in social acceptance of women’s relationship to technology . . . her work is complex, comprehensive and highly readable.” —Publishers Weekly “Art historian Wosk analyzes the overt and covert messages in depictions of women and machines in an array of fiction and, more impressively, in some 150 visual images.” —Booklist