Dead Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0 | 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 | 08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |

Subject: Dead Media Working Note 09.2

Dead Medium: A Panorama Bibliography

From: aeksp_AT_hum.aau.dk (Soeren Pold)

Dear Bruce,

I've seen your postings on the list about the panorama with great interest. Here is a bibliography with some books about the panorama and the like. It is not a complete list, but a list of works I have used and found interesting recently in my writing of an article about the panorama.

GERMAN:
Of course Walter Benjamin is essential. Some of this (the Baudelaire book) can be found in English too.

Benjamin, Walter: Das Passagen-Werk, Frankfurt/M 1982
Benjamin, Walter: Charles Baudelaire, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M 1974

Norbert Bolz has written a highly interesting book dealing with among other things the panoramic perception:

Bolz, Norbert: Am Ende der Gutenberg-Galaxis: Die Neuen Kommunikationsverhtnisse, Munchen 1993

History of the panorama media with some of the documents printed:

Buddemeier, Heinz: Panorama, Diorama, Photographie: Entstehung und Wirkung neuer Medien im 19. Jahrhundert, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970

Two very essential works on the panorama. The latter a catalogue to an exhibition in Bonn with beautiful illustrations. The first is simply *the* book about the panorama. With history, development, techniques, signification etc.:

Oettermann, Stephan: Das Panorama, Frankfurt/M, Syndikat, 1980
Plessen, Marie Louise von & Giersch, Ulrich: Sehsucht: das Panorama als Massenunterhaltung des 19. Jahrhunderts, Basel, Frankfurt/M, 1993

Very well written with comparison of the panorama with the railway. Can be found in English I think:

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang: Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise, Frankfurt/M 1989
(((This would by Wolfgang Schivelbusch's "The Railway Journey," a fine book on the social impact of railroads = bruces)))

ENGLISH:
About Benjamin and also the panorama:
Buck-Morrs, Susan: The dialectics of seeing, MIT-Press 1993

Jonathan Crary has written a brilliant book about how the visual machines (stereoscope, phenakisticope etc) changes the observer's perception:
Crary, Jonathan: Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, MIT Press Cambridge Mass, London England 1990

Also in the Benjamin department, dealing with the origin of the cinematic look and finding it in the panorama and elsewhere:

Friedberg, Anne: Window Shopping: Cinema and the postmodern, University of California Press, 1993

FRENCH:

Dealing with development in visual media and its importance. Is available in translated editions too:

Paul Virilio: La Machine de Vision, Galilee 1988

DANISH:

Hansen, Gilbert: "Det panoramiske blik" in "Arkitekturtidsskrift B" nr. 51, Aarhus 1994

My own work on the panorama and Balzac:
Pold, Soeren: Parisisk Panorama, Aarhus 1994
Pold, Soeren: "Panoramisk urbanisering, Paris som medie hos Balzac og i 1800-tallets realistiske medie- virkelighed" in "Passage, 22, Aarhus 1996 (in print).

From Denmark but in English:
Zerlang, Martin: "The City Spectacular of the Nineteenth Century" in Arbejdspapir, 9, Center for Urbanitet og Estetik, Cph.

REVITALIZING DEAD MEDIA ON THE WWW:

Using QuickTimeVR panoramas to show Potsdamer Platz in Berlin every day:
City.scope: http://cityscope.icf.de/

Macintosh QuickTimeVR:
http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com/Home.htm

Best,

Soeren Pold
Dept. of Comparative Literature phone: +45 8942 1835
University of Aarhus fax: +45 8942 1850
Willemoesgade 15
http://www.uib.no/ped/tutors/spaarhus.gif
DK-8200 Aarhus N
Denmark

Dead Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0 | 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 | 08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |