An unequalled historical sleuth and storyteller, Janine Marchessault shows that since the mid-twentieth century, experiments across audiovisual media have modeled a cosmic eco-consciousness both joyful and responsible. In the networks of inspiration and support among inventors, artists, designers, philosophers, and the industries and institutions that supported them, Marchessault reveals ecosystems that are as deep, fascinating, and delicately intertwined as a coral reef.
Laura Marks, Grant Strate University Professor, Simon Fraser University; author of Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art and Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image
Ecstatic Worlds returns to Karl Mannheim's utopian thought and Georges Bataille's ecological vision to multiply the potentials of Earth, globe, planet, and (crucially) the plurality of worlds that are imagined in the period following World War II. Marchessault offers compelling readings of experimental cinema and media artists from Jacques Cousteau to Buckminster Fuller whose world-making projects sharpen our understanding of images and media as key features of the current twenty-first century environment.
Patrick Jagoda, Associate Professor, University of Chicago
