Techniques of Illusion
Techniques of Illusion

Author: Katharina Rein

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-03

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1000891488

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This book explores stage conjuring during its “golden age,” from about 1860 to 1910. This study provides close readings highlighting four paradigmatic illusions of the time that stand in for different kinds of illusions typical of stage magic in the “golden age” and analyses them within their cultural and media-historical context: “Pepper’s Ghost,” the archetypical mirror illusion; “The Vanishing Lady,” staging a teleportation in a time of a dizzying acceleration of transport; “the levitation,” simulating weightlessness with the help of an extended steel machinery; and “The Second Sight,” a mind-reading illusion using up-to-date communication technologies. These close readings are completed by writings focusing on visual media and expanding the scope backwards and forwards in time, roughly to 1800 and to 2000. This exploration will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.

Luxury Arts of the Renaissance
Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Author: Marina Belozerskaya

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2005-10-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0892367857

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Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.

Sophie's World
Sophie's World

Author: Jostein Gaarder

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2007-03-20

Total Pages: 599

ISBN-13: 1466804270

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A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

The Laws of Simplicity
The Laws of Simplicity

Author: John Maeda

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2006-07-07

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 0262260956

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Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more. Maeda—a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer—explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on. Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products—how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."

The Dai Vernon Book of Magic
The Dai Vernon Book of Magic

Author: Lewis Ganson

Publisher:

Published: 2019-07-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781079018325

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This book is a classic of magic and includes Dai Vernon's linking rings moves and cups and balls routine. It uses high quality B&W photos throughout to show many of the moves. Each routine ends with an outline of the routine, which is great for practicing from. Highly Recommended.CONTENTS IN BRIEF INCLUDEForeword: How the Book Came To Be, and Some Introductory Remarks by Dai VernonIntroduction: About Writing the Book, by Lewis GansonB&W Photo of "The Professor"Chapter 1: The Background to a Legend. Biographical notes on the magical life of Dai VernonChapter 2: The Vernon Touch. Lots of anecdotes about other magicians such as Nate Leipzig, Malini, and others.Chapter 3: A Chinese Classic. Routine for Coins Through the Table.Chapter 4: Penetration of Thought. Chapter 5: Three Ball Transposition. Chapter 6: Application of the Tenkai Palm. Chapter 7: The Linking Rings. Chapter 8: Seven Card Monte. Chapter 10: Expansion of Texture: Copper & Silver placed in hanky.Chapter 11: The Challenge. Chapter 12: Dai Vernon's Double Lift: with a well covered get ready.Chapter 13: The Cups & Balls. Dai Vernon's routine is a must study for effectiveness and routining. Chapter 14: Nate Leipzig's Card Stab.Chapter 15: Tips on Knots.Chapter 16: Six Card Repeat.Chapter 17: Free and Unlimited Coinage of Silver.Chapter 18: Mental Spell.Chapter 19: Pot Pourri. Chapter 20: Ball, Cone, and Handkerchief. Chapter 21: The Last Trick of Dr. Jacob Daley: Four Ace Transposition packet trick.Chapter 22: Paul Rosini's Impromptu Thimble Routine.Chapter 23: Vernon Poker Demonstration (Thanks to Jay Marshall). Chapter 24: The Thumb Tie: a full routine.

Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt
Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt

Author: Marie Svoboda

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 1606066536

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This publication presents fascinating new findings on ancient Romano-Egyptian funerary portraits preserved in international collections. Once interred with mummified remains, nearly a thousand funerary portraits from Roman Egypt survive today in museums around the world, bringing viewers face-to-face with people who lived two thousand years ago. Until recently, few of these paintings had undergone in-depth study to determine by whom they were made and how. An international collaboration known as APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research) was launched in 2013 to promote the study of these objects and to gather scientific and historical findings into a shared database. The first phase of the project was marked with a two-day conference at the Getty Villa. Conservators, scientists, and curators presented new research on topics such as provenance and collecting, comparisons of works across institutions, and scientific studies of pigments, binders, and supports. The papers and posters from the conference are collected in this publication, which offers the most up-to-date information available about these fascinating remnants of the ancient world. The free online edition of this open-access publication is available at www.getty.edu/publications/mummyportraits/ and includes zoomable illustrations and graphs. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book.

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design
Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design

Author: Michael Bierut

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1616890711

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Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut's critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Bierut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut's intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov's Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it truth. In Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, designers and nondesigners alike can share and revel in his insights.

Honorable Influence
Honorable Influence

Author: David Hagenbuch

Publisher: Aldersgate Press

Published: 2016-07

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9781600393082

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Few things impact our lives more than marketing, yet few people consider how that influence can be a force for good. Honorable Influence shines the light of Christian faith on the field, revealing how marketers can avoid negative impact, and instead influence consumers to their benefit. Individuals and organizations will find in Honorable Influence practical guidance for doing what seems impossible to many-using marketing to show love to God and others.

In the Bubble
In the Bubble

Author: John Thackara

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2006-02-17

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0262701154

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How to design a world in which we rely less on stuff, and more on people. We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World. These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives. Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how? In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now—not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology—ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles—above all, lightness—inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.