Shop > Monographs

#05070

Dara Birnbaum: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman

Artist
Dara Birnbaum
Writer
T.J. Demos
Price
$25.95
Date
2010
Publisher
Afterall Books
Format
Monographs
Details
Softcover
ISBN
9781846380679
Size
15 × 21 × 1 cm
Length
118 pp
Genre
Criticism, Film & Cinema
Description

Opening with a prolonged salvo of fiery explosions accompanied by the warning cry of a siren, Dara Birnbaum’s video Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–79) is a concise, action-packed, and visually riveting video. During its seven-minute span we see, again and again, the transformation of the drab secretary Diana Prince into the super-heroic Wonder Woman. By isolating and repeating the moment of transformation—spinning figure, arms outstretched—Birnbaum unmasks the technology at the heart of the metamorphosis. In this illustrated examination of Birnbaum’s video, T. J. Demos situates it in its historical context—among other developments in postmodernist appropriation, media analysis, and feminist politics—and explores the artist’s pioneering attempts to open up the transformative abilities of video as a medium.

Demos examines Birnbaum’s influence on such artists as Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Candice Breitz, and the turn toward “postproduction procedures”—the mobilization of existing imagery for innovative uses. He also reveals a fascinating historical shift in the reception of Birnbaum’s work: a move from an emphasis on her deconstruction of mass culture ideology to an appreciation of her creative use of consumer imagery.

  1. Dara Birnbaum: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman
 

Related Items

  1. Bas Jan Ader and Jan Verwoert: Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous
  2. Mark Leckey and Mitch Speed: Mark Leckey: Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore
  3. Helen Chadwick and Marina Warner: Helen Chadwick: The Oval Court
  4. Sonja Ivekovic and Ruth Noack: Sanja Ivekovic: Triangle
  5. Walker Evans and Oliver Richon: Walker Evans: Kitchen Corner
  6. Pierre Huyghe and Mark Lewis: Pierre Huyghe: Untitled (Human Mask)
  7. Sharon Lockhart and Howard Singerman: Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat
  8. Kodwo Eshun and Dan Graham: Dan Graham: Rock My Religion
  9. Stefan Gronert and Sigmar Polke: Sigmar Polke: Girlfriends
  10. Ruth Buchanan: Where does my body belong?
  11. Kione Kochi : The Curator’s Handbook
  12. Anna Dezeuze and Thomas Hirschhorn: Thomas Hirschhorn: Deleuze Monument
  13. Chris Kraus and Eileen Myles: I Love Dick
  14. Elizabeth A. Povinelli: Routes/Worlds
  15. Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking
  16. William Mitchell: The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era
  17. Breaking the Codex
  18. Thomas Baylre: Playtime
  19. Making Art Global, Part 1 The Third Havana Biennial 1989
  20. Diane Borsato and Laura Carlin: What Is a Sculpture?
  21. Susan Schuppli: Material Witness: Media, Forensics, Evidence
  22. Benjamin H. Bratton: Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution
  23. Luis Camnitzer: One Number is Worth One Word
  24. Richard Birkett: Donald Rodney: Autoicon
  25. Boris Groys: Logic of the Collection
  26. Stephen Wetzel: [PAUSE]
  27. REARVIEWS VOLUME IV
  28. To Spoil the Party, To Set Our Joy Ablaze
  29. Andrea Long Chu: Authority
  30. Marta Braun and Etienne-Jules Marey: Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904)
  31. Toril Johannessen: Supplement 3: The Invention and Conclusion of the Eye
  32. Iris Häussler: He Named Her Amber
  33. Rose Marasco: At Home
  34. Sarah Cook, Germaine Koh, Mark Miessen, and Yulia Startsev: Germaine Koh: Weather Systems
  35. David Diviney and Tom Sherman: Exclusive Memory
  36. The Long Now: Public Studio
  37. Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective
  38. Walter Scott: The Wendy Award
  39. Walter Scott: Wendy, Master of Art
  40. Walter Scott: Wendy’s Revenge