Barbara Flückiger, Eva Hielscher, Nadine Wietlisbach (eds.)

Color Mania

The Material of Color in Photography and Film

Since the earliest days of cinema, film has been a colorful medium and art form. More than 230 film color processes have been devised in the course of film history, often in close connection with photography. In this regard, both media institutionalized numerous techniques such as hand and stencil coloring as well as printing and halftone processes. Apart from these fundamental connections in terms of the technology of color processes, film and photography also share and exchange color attributions and aesthetics.

This publication highlights material aspects of color in photography and film, while also investigating the relationship of historical film colors and present-day photography. Works of contemporary photographers and artists who reflect on technological and culture-theoretical aspects of the material of color underline these relations. Thematic clusters focus on aesthetic and technological parallels, including fashion and identity, abstraction and experiment, politics, exoticism, and travel.

Color Mania contains a general introduction to color in film and photography (technique, materiality, aesthetics) as well as a series of short essays that take a closer look at specific aspects. An extensive image section illustrates the texts and color systems and continues the aesthetic experience of the various processes and objects in book form.

Since the earliest days of cinema, film has been a colorful medium and art form. More than 230 film color processes have been devised in the course of film history, often in close connection with photography. In this regard, both media institutionalized numerous techniques such as hand and stencil coloring as well as printing and halftone processes. Apart from these fundamental connections in terms of the technology of color processes, film and photography also share and exchange color attributions and aesthetics.

This publication highlights material aspects of color in photography and film, while also investigating the relationship of historical film colors and present-day photography. Works of contemporary photographers and artists who reflect on technological and culture-theoretical aspects of the material of color underline these relations. Thematic clusters focus on aesthetic and technological parallels, including fashion and identity, abstraction and experiment, politics, exoticism, and travel.

Color Mania contains a general introduction to color in film and photography (technique, materiality, aesthetics) as well as a series of short essays that take a closer look at specific aspects. An extensive image section illustrates the texts and color systems and continues the aesthetic experience of the various processes and objects in book form.

Dieses Buch ist auch auf Deutsch erhältlich

Edited by Barbara Flückiger, Eva Hielscher, Nadine Wietlisbach, in collaboration with Fotomuseum Winterthur

With contributions by Michelle Beutler, Noemi Daugaard, Josephine Diecke, Evelyn Echle, Barbara Flueckiger, Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, Eva Hielscher, Thilo Koenig, Joëlle Kost, Franziska Kunze, Bregt Lameris, David Pfluger, Ulrich Ruedel, Mona Schubert, Simon Spiegel, Olivia Kristina Stutz, Giorgio Trumpy, Martin Weiss, Nadine Wietlisbach

Design: Meierkolb

16 × 24 cm, 6 ¼ × 9 ½ in

240 pages, 122 illustrations

paperback

2020, 978-3-03778-607-9, English
CHF 30.00
Out of stock

Barbara Flückiger

Barbara Flückiger has been professor for film studies at the University of Zurich since 2007. Before her studies in film theory and history, she worked internationally as a film professional. Her research focuses on the interaction between technology and aesthetics. She published two standard text books Sound Design and Visual Effects. Since 2001 she has developed and led many research projects. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious Advanced Grant by the European Research Council for a research project on the technology and aesthetics of film colors plus in 2018 a proof of concept for the development of a multispectral, versatile film scanner. Website: http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/

Eva Hielscher

Eva Hielscher is a film scholar, curator and moving image archivist. She holds an MA degree in “Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image” from the University of Amsterdam, and has studied media culture and film history in Weimar and Utrecht. In 2007 she was awarded the “Kodak Fellowship in Film Preservation” by the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and has worked at film archives and museums in Germany and the Netherlands. She completed her PhD dissertation on interwar city symphonies at Ghent University and is co-editor and co-author of The City Symphony Phenomenon (2018). In 2018 she joined the research team on historical film colors at the University of Zurich and is a guest curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Nadine Wietlisbach

Nadine Wietlisbach devises exhibitions, publications and other discursive formats in the fields of contemporary photography and art. She is Director of Fotomuseum Winterthur since January 2018. From 2015 till 2017 she was the Director of Photoforum Pasquart Biel/Bienne, following her post as a curator at the Nidwaldner Museum in Stans. She founded the independent art space sic! Raum für Kunst in Lucerne in 2007. She worked for various institutions in South Africa and the States, lastly at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.