Oct 03, 2010, 10:00 AM
UIC Innovation Center

Processing.Android: Open-Source for Mobile Innovation
Sjoukje van der Meulen: A Plea for a Critical Approach toward (new) Media in the US

This presentation will discuss the work of the Czech media theorist Vilém Flusser (1920–91). While hardly known in the United States, Flusser's work is of crucial importance for all critical theory - and practice - of media. Flusser both continues the Marxist tradition of German media theory (Walter Benjamin and others) and upgrades that legacy to contemporary media conditions in the footsteps of a Marshall McLuhan. This talk is based on the essay, "Between Benjamin and McLuhan: Vilém Flusser's Media Theory," recently published in the New German Critique (Summer 2010).

Sjoukje van der Meulen is an art historian, theorist and critic. She received her Ph.D in modern architectural history and theory from Columbia University (Fall 2009) after the defense of her dissertation "The Problem of Media in Contemporary Art Theory (1960-1990)." Van der Meulen is currently a Visiting Assisting Professor of Modern Art History and Theory in the Department of Art History at UIC.

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