Projects per year
Abstract / Description of output
Ranging from an examination of the politically-laden spectacle of George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822, as stage-managed by the celebrated novelist Sir Walter Scott, to an analysis of Google Earth’s role in the construction of a new kind of political map, one no longer structured through boundary lines and coloured territories but instead through a politics of image resolution, the remarkable essays in this book present innovative ways of understanding visual phenomena in historical and contemporary culture.
Writing on the Image brings together a series of Mark Dorrian’s celebrated critical writings, developed over the last twelve years. Focusing on issues of elevated vision, spectacle, atmosphere, and the limits of aesthetic experience, Dorrian explores the politics of representation through a series of close readings of the ideological effects of images in their specific contexts. Seamlessly traversing sources from architecture, art, literature, history, geography and film, the essays gathered here exemplify Mark Dorrian’s pioneering approach to architecture and visual culture.
Featuring a Foreword by Paul Carter, and an Afterword by Ella Chmielewska, Writing on the Image opens with a sequence of four historically-oriented chapters that then lead on to considerations of key events in architectural, urban and visual culture over the past decade. Whether it be an eighteenth-century engraving that depicts a magnified drop of tap water as an alien planet swarming with monstrous creatures, an artwork showing a car with the silhouette of a building mounted on its roof, the covering up of a tapestry in the UN before a televised news conference, or a large-scale satellite image affixed to the basement floor of a public building, Dorrian shows how each artefact or event he examines is eloquent in its ability to problematise a larger set of relations beyond itself.
Writing on the Image brings together a series of Mark Dorrian’s celebrated critical writings, developed over the last twelve years. Focusing on issues of elevated vision, spectacle, atmosphere, and the limits of aesthetic experience, Dorrian explores the politics of representation through a series of close readings of the ideological effects of images in their specific contexts. Seamlessly traversing sources from architecture, art, literature, history, geography and film, the essays gathered here exemplify Mark Dorrian’s pioneering approach to architecture and visual culture.
Featuring a Foreword by Paul Carter, and an Afterword by Ella Chmielewska, Writing on the Image opens with a sequence of four historically-oriented chapters that then lead on to considerations of key events in architectural, urban and visual culture over the past decade. Whether it be an eighteenth-century engraving that depicts a magnified drop of tap water as an alien planet swarming with monstrous creatures, an artwork showing a car with the silhouette of a building mounted on its roof, the covering up of a tapestry in the UN before a televised news conference, or a large-scale satellite image affixed to the basement floor of a public building, Dorrian shows how each artefact or event he examines is eloquent in its ability to problematise a larger set of relations beyond itself.
Original language | English |
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Place of Publication | London |
Publisher | I.B. Tauris Publishers |
Number of pages | 288 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780857738363 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781784530389 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 Jul 2015 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- architecture
- urbanism
- representation
- visual culture
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Writing on the Image: Architecture, the City and the Politics of Representation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Agreement with Partner Academies - Joint Projects: The Aerial View - Spatial Knowledges and Spatial Practices
1/09/06 → 30/11/08
Project: Research
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Utopia on Ice: The Climate as Commodity Form
Dorrian, M., 2013, Architecture in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Deep Time, Design, Science and Philosophy. Turpin, E. (ed.). Ann Arbor: M Publishing/Open Humanities Press, p. 143-152 10 p. (Critical Climate Change).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
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Utopia on Ice: The Sunny Mountain Ski-Dome as an Allegory of the Future
Dorrian, M., 2012, In: Cabinet: A Quarterly of Art and Culture. 47, p. 25-32 8 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Voice, Monstrosity and Flaying: Anish Kapoor’s Marsyas as a Silent Sound Work
Dorrian, M., 2012, In: Architectural Theory Review. 17, 1, p. 93-104 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Press/Media
Activities
- 1 Public Engagement – Public lecture/debate/seminar
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Adventures on the Vertical
Mark Dorrian (Speaker)
11 Nov 2015Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Public lecture/debate/seminar
Profiles
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Mark Dorrian
- Edinburgh College of Art - Forbes Chair in Architecture
- Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Person: Academic: Research Active