The postmedia era forces us to rethink the status of a new generation of images and new postdigital imaging. Referring, inter alia, to the proposals of Ingrid Hoelzl and Rémi Marie, the article sketches a proposal for a theoretical approach to postimages as hybrid visual representations that arise as a result of the application of algorithmic procedures during their production. Postimages can be treated as a manifestation of a new paradigm of image culture in postantropocentric times, in which nonrepresentationalist approaches to digital image theory point to its ontogenetic methods of producing by “digital machines of vision.” Postimages become important reference points for the formation of a posthumanist order in which the symbiosis of man and machine becomes the foundation for the creation of a new pictorial paradigm based on algorithmic procedures that follows the photographic paradigm.

Photography plays a special role in Chris Marker’s entire work, from the photo-novel La Jetée to the installation titled The Hollow Men. The author builds refl ection on photography and image in reference to the concepts of movement/stillness and memory/forgetfulness. As a consequence, she emphasizes the autobiographical and self-refl ective nature of Marker’s artistic realizations, in many cases realizing the features of an essay. The author of the text proposes an analysis of the practices that Marker applies to photography; she considers how he incorporates photography or an image with the characteristics of photography in his works – which are varied in technique or in used medium and which were arising at diff erent periods of time. The purpose of the article is to outline a certain framework for analyzing the Marker’s creative strategies and to introduce theoretical assumptions that can be used to interpret particular works of the artist.

The author presents an analysis and interpretation of a short story Transposed Heads by Thomas Mann. She also discusses its adaptations: two as fi lms, and one theatrical. The story is a personal version of an ancient Indian legend, which was generously updated by the writer, who decided to go far beyond the original. This “metaphysical joke” became just a pretext to discuss subjects present in his other works, e.g. a predominating motive of a confl ict between body and soul. It is very important that the recognition of the legend in the 20th century was thanks to Mann, and not the original story. Both avant-garde fi lm directors and theatre director refer to Mann: Alejandro Jodorovsky in his La cravate (1957), Fernando Birri in ORG (1979), and the director of an Indian play Hayavadana (1970).

In the article the authors try to build a research refl ection by means of a logical description of the result of self and technology – sound carriers/media, up to the extreme form, that is their disappearance, or distance from the listener/user. The authors show the infl uence of media on the organization of musical expression in the fi eld of semiotics, technology and aesthetics. 

The starting point of the article is a refl ection on a fragment of the lyrics, which suggests a return of music to the air. The authors reconstruct the evolutionary path of sound carriers and reach the place where the air was the primary carrier. At the same time they analyze the contemporary face of technologically entangled air (as a carrier), which is no longer the air from the pre-industrial era, but rather a symbolic place where one can fi nd wireless communication, the Internet or Bluetooth.

The article has a philosophical and technological character and serves primarily to consider the role of carriers in the current media reality in which, on the one hand, retro resentment is revived and, on the other hand, the form of streaming services takes over the market of music distribution. The contemporary listener, producer-consumer and remixer, modifi es his behaviours, rituals and habitus of listening – the perception of sound. 

The article presents an analysis of the possible existence of unofficial culture in totalitarian regimes. The problem is presented on the example of the Heptachor Studio and the tradition of Russian free dance, rooted in the culture of the Silver Age. The method of “musical movement”, developed by S. Rudniewa, survived in the regime of isolation in the communist system. It was possible thanks to Rudniwa’s persistence in the communication and social emptiness outside the borders of official culture.

Shaping the concept of the “Japanese people” was a complex process in which a branch of science called “eugenics” played a role. Galton’s theories in the late 19th and early 20th century gained great popularity in Europe and the USA. The Japanese, who at the end of the Sakoku period opened their borders, showed interest in the achievements of Western science. Eugenic theories have been known practically since the Meiji era, but their popularity depended on the internal situation and position in the international arena. Shaping the concept of “nation” required theoretical support, which was provided, among others considerations of Japanese eugenics regarding the category of “pure blood”.

Andrzej Gwóźdź, Zaklinanie rzeczywistości. Filmy niemieckie i ich historie 1933–1949, Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT, Wrocław 2018, s. 454.

Piotr Marecki, Gatunki cyfrowe. Instrukcja obsługi, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2018, ss. 200.

Rafał Mazur, Wielki Dźwięk nie brzmi. Daoistyczna praktyka dźwiękowa w kontekście wybranych nurtów współczesnej sztuki i filozofii, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2018

Jacek Ostaszewski, Historia narracji filmowej, Universitas, Kraków 2018, ss. 330.

Jacek Ostaszewski, Historia narracji filmowej, Universitas, Kraków 2018, ss. 330.