Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change

Vivian Sobchack

ISBN 10: 0816633193 / ISBN 13: 9780816633197

Published by University of Minnesota Press, 1999

About this Item

Editor(s): Sobchack, Vivian. Num Pages: 256 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: JFC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 151 x 229 x 17. Weight in Grams: 432. . 1999. 1st Edition. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780816633197

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816633193
• ISBN 13: 9780816633197
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Two thousand years ago, Ovid asked his readers to imagine metamorphoses in which men and women became flowers and beasts. Today, before our cinema-savvy eyes, people melt and re-form as altogether new creatures: they "morph." This volume explores what digital morphing means -- both as a cultural practice specific to our times and as a link to a much broader history of images of human transformation.

Meta-Morphing ranges over topics that include turn-of-the-century "quick-change" artists, Mesoamerican shamanic transformation, and cosmetic surgery; recent works such as Terminator 2, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Heavenly Creatures, and Forrest Gump; and the transformations imagined by Kafka, Proust, and Burroughs. The contributors look not only at the technical wizardry behind digital morphing, but also at the history and cultural concerns it expresses.

About the Author

Vivian Sobchack is Professor and Associate Dean in the School of Theater, Film, and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of "Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film "(1997) and "The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience "(1992) and the editor of "Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick Change "(2000) and "The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modern Event "(1996), among other books.