The Engine of Visualization: Thinking through Photography / Edition 1

by Patrick Maynard

Overview

In the first philosophical book wholly about photography, Patrick Maynard dispels some basic, persistent confusions by treating photography as a technology—a way to enhance and filter human power. Once photography is understood as a kind of technology, Maynard argues, insights about technology may be applied to provide the general perspective on photography that has been missing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801486890
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patrick Maynard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of Graphic Expression, also from Cornell.

What People are Saying About This

Alan Trachtenberg

For Patrick Maynard photography is in the first instance a technology for marking surfaces, and from this insight flows the most original sustained analysis and argument yet produced in the history of thinking about the camera and its work. At once analytical and historical, scientific and aesthetic, as lucid and witty as it is learned, The Engine of Visualization spells out the simplest general principles necessary for a clear understanding of what photography—also technology, image, and art—is and does. This is a signal achievement, and a simply lovely book.

Kendall Walton

An extremely fascinating study, packed with insights and illumination and astute observation. It is first-rate philosophy—clearheaded, imaginative, sophisticated, and resourceful. And in its historical and technological dimensions, it connects with the 'real world' in ways that are rare in philosophical studies.

Editorial Reviews

Philosopher Patrick Maynard makes a provocative case for revising commonly held definitions of photography.

Technology and Culture

The Engine of Visualization: Thinking Through Photography by Patrick Maynard makes an original contribution to the ongoing conversation about photography by calling attention to the unexpected forms into which the 'technology' of photography has been evolving.

-- "The Art Book"

Philosopher Patrick Maynard makes a provocative case for revising commonly held definitions of photography.

-- "Technology and Culture"

From the Publisher

The Engine of Visualization: Thinking Through Photography by Patrick Maynard makes an original contribution to the ongoing conversation about photography by calling attention to the unexpected forms into which the 'technology' of photography has been evolving.

The Art Book

"For Patrick Maynard photography is in the first instance a technology for marking surfaces, and from this insight flows the most original sustained analysis and argument yet produced in the history of thinking about the camera and its work. At once analytical and historical, scientific and aesthetic, as lucid and witty as it is learned, The Engine of Visualization spells out the simplest general principles necessary for a clear understanding of what photography—also technology, image, and art—is and does. This is a signal achievement, and a simply lovely book."

Alan Trachtenberg

"An extremely fascinating study, packed with insights and illumination and astute observation. It is first-rate philosophy—clearheaded, imaginative, sophisticated, and resourceful. And in its historical and technological dimensions, it connects with the 'real world' in ways that are rare in philosophical studies."

Kendall Walton