Video Theories

The book by Daniels and Thoben is a game-changer both for Media Studies and for Art History, making available an important body of texts which have so far been either unknown, or inaccessible. The editors' knowledgeable selection and their intellectually rich proposal for ordering the historical discourses about the medium of video should raise objections and debate, but what will prevail is the phenomenal achievement of this publication that makes such debate possible in the first place. An essential source for anybody interested in visual media. * Andreas Broeckmann, Art Historian, Leuphana University, Germany * This book is a long overdue must-read primer for anyone thinking about and teaching the many meanings and epistemes of video. Read this book and you will find a compellingly structured overview of video theories and histories covering a wide range of discursive fields. * Hanna B. Hölling, Associate Professor, University College London, UK and Research Professor, Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland * This exiting and much-needed volume brings together an impressive array of voices on video. Its interdisciplinary, transhistorical, and intercultural scope offers a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of the discursive field of video theories–a field that is as multifaceted and everchanging as the medium of video itself. The most laudable accomplishment of the book is that it celebrates the “hydra-headedness” of video without falling prey to it: the volume doesn’t lose sight of the main (t)h(r)eads of the medium, nor does it attempt to silence any perspectives on video at the benefit of a singular canonical viewpoint. Instead, by structuring the volume around themes and by providing insightful introductions to each chapter, the volume manages to interconnect not only a multitude of heterogenous video theories, but also to critically relate artistic practices to written reflections, as well as the past, present and future of video. * Janna Houwen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Literary Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands and author of Film and Video Intermediality: The Question of Medium Specificity in Contemporary Moving Images (2017) *