Here/There

Here/There brings together media studies and art history in groundbreaking and insightful ways: linking drones to the history of video art, as well as tracing the history of telepresence in both fields. Redefining the interface as an index, Paulsen confronts and explores the deeply contradictory nature of the interface—the ways in which it is both here and there, live and recorded—while also addressing the ethical implications of screens that enable users to touch without being touched in turn.

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Professor, Modern Culture and Media, Brown University

Here/There offers both a prehistory and an alternative account of telepresence and teleaction through a detailed exploration of artistic production made with video. Paulsen focuses on artists whose distinctive contribution is their ambition to make 'both sides of the screen matter.' Confronting head-on the ethical-political challenges associated with these increasingly dominant technologies, Paulsen argues compellingly that, 'In the face of doubt, one must act with care.'

Kate Mondloch, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Oregon; author of Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art

In this lucid and persuasive analysis of telepresence and touch, Kris Paulsen tackles the philosophical complexities of the interface with elegance and rigor. Here/There offers compelling readings of canonical and contemporary artworks that will engage artists and curators as well as theorists of art and media.

Maeve Connolly, Director, MA in Art & Research Collaboration, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology; author of TV Museum: Contemporary Art and the Age of Television

At a time when the New York Times publishes stories in virtual reality and drones are the new aces, Paulsen strips away the myths of telepresence to bare its surreptitious workings. Marshaling cogent examples from the 1960s to the present—from the invention of the computer mouse and satellite performances to Internet and videogame art—this well-researched book will leave readers convinced that an interface is not built from plastic keys or glass screens, but from their unexamined faith that what's here is also there.

Jon Ippolito, Professor of New Media and Director of Digital Curation at the University of Maine; coauthor of Re-collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory

Touch is often thought to be obsolete in today's media culture—we lead 'mediated' lives, so goes the dictum. Kris Paulsen's theoretically sophisticated but also highly readable book shows how layered and complex this issue really is. By tracing the manifold intersections of art and technology, the work demonstrates the broad engagement of artists and experimenters with touching. Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Joan Jonas, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Ken Goldberg, Harun Farocki, and many others have explored its cultural denigration and ideological ramifications, while reimagining and reinventing forms appropriate for electronic and digital environments. As Paulsen convincingly shows, remote touching, whether by video, satellites or drones, has become a fact of life—for better or for worse.

Erkki Huhtamo, Professor of Design | Media Arts, and Film, Television, and Digital Media, UCLA