The human in bits : graphical computers, black abstractions / Kris Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Kris, 1972- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American art.

African American art--Themes, motives.

African American artists.

Computer art--Social aspects.

Computer art.

Technology in art--Social aspects.

Technology in art.

African Americans--Race identity.

African Americans.

Aesthetics.

Art and technology.

Race in art.

Art, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 202 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"The Human in Bits is a study of how five modern and contemporary Black artists, Howardena Pindell, Alma Thomas, Jack Whitten, Charles Gaines, and Julie Mehretu, use technology and technologized forms of being to explore forms of racialized personhood-specifically the graphical computer screen. Digital screens organize most of our professional, social, and intimate lives, and this book explores the forms of the human and meaning that arise from these arrangements, and Black artists' early attempts to question and experiment with these new forms of the human. Kris Cohen shows how these Black artists reconfigure the stakes that their white contemporaries were dealing with-for example, when whiteness already imagines Blackness as a homogenous field, occupying the diagrammed pixel screen can represent an escape from the ubiquitous violence of everyday life. What emerges is a "graphical," which is to say non-representational, form of personhood that develops alongside the graphical user interface and other related technologies, an encoded and racialized personhood adapted for the graphical field"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The Human in Bits

Operational Processes: Leo Steinberg

In, Around, Above, Behind, and Other Forms of Space Flight: Alma Thomas

Nonrelational Blackness: Jack Whitten

Modernity and Fungibility: Charles Gaines

Infrastructures of Containment: Julie Mehretu

Resistance and Standing.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Cohen, Kris, 1972- Human in bits.

ISBN:

9781478061076

1478061073

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.