Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century (October Books)

Techniques of the Observer examines a diverse set of developments in philosophy, science, and an emerging mass visual culture, including the work of figures such as Goethe, Schopenhauer, Ruskin, Turner, and Marx. It discusses at length significant optical apparatuses such as the stereoscope and pre-cinematic devices, detailing their dependence on new knowledge about the body. These forms of mass culture, usually assumed to be `realist,' were in fact based on abstract models of vision. The book describes a wide-ranging revaluation of visuality in the first half of the nineteenth century, and situates it in relation to capitalist modernization and larger processes of rationalization. This work is of primary concern to readers in art history and in the histories of film and photography, and to all those interested in theories of film, photography, modernism and modern culture.