Subtitle: The History of Special Effects
Even with time to read this I doubt I'd know whether it's a brilliant angle on image and power, or a well-elaborated coffeehouse theory. The first section is "Scripted Spaces and the Illusion of Power, 1550-1780", and with alterations to the dates that could stand for the whole book. It's all about the geometry of masque design being used to direct the masses through a pageant that distracts us from the conditions of power. This is now obvious when looking at Baroque constructions; it's obvious but we pretend it's unimportant looking at Vegas versions of the rest of the world; there may be quotidian, and more powerful, structures in any daily life. Klein also draws examples from movies, especially SF; shopping-mall cities (Jerde); and software designs, especially of space, including social space, including social space taken abstractly and built by cell networks and phone etiquette.
Since it's largely concerned with special effects as an attack on democracy, an attack focussed on public space, there's a final bit on post-9/11 politics.
The language is maybe overheated, a bit theory-inflected, but the fever fits the subject and I think he might even consider lit-crit jargon as a virtual reality of its own. There are certainly enough examples that I could skim over the theory language.
And, finally, he may have an actual argument about why dirigibles are bubbling up in the SF&F subconscious. Someday I will go back and read that argument properly.
ISBN: 1565848039
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