Virtual Light

Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Spectra
ISBN: 0307831183
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES bestseller • 2005: Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. The millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pickpocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich—or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash. . . . Praise for Virtual Light “Both exhilarating and terrifying . . . Although considered the master of 'cyberpunk' science fiction, William Gibson is also one fine suspense writer.”—People “A stunner . . . A terrifically stylish burst of kick-butt imagination.”—Entertainment Weekly “Convincing . . . frightening . . . Virtual Light is written with a sense of craft, a sense of humor and a sense of the ultimate seriousness of the problems it explores.”—Chicago Tribune “In the emerging pop culture of the information age, Gibson is the brightest star.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

Light in Dark Times

Author: Alisse Waterston
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487539134
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
What will become of us in these trying times? How will we pass the time that we have on earth? In gorgeously rendered graphic form, Light in Dark Times invites readers to consider these questions by exploring the political catastrophes and moral disasters of the past and present, revealing issues that beg to be studied, understood, confronted, and resisted. A profound work of anthropology and art, this book is for anyone yearning to understand the darkness and hoping to hold onto the light. It is a powerful story of encounters with writers, philosophers, activists, and anthropologists whose words are as meaningful today as they were during the times in which they were written. This book is at once a lament over the darkness of our times, an affirmation of the value of knowledge and introspection, and a consideration of truth, lies, and the dangers of the trivial. In a time when many of us struggle with the feeling that we cannot do enough to change the course of the future, this book is a call to action, asking us to envision and create an alternative world from the one in which we now live. Light in Dark Times is beautiful to look at and to hold – an exquisite work of art that is lively, informative, enlightening, deeply moving, and inspiring.

Idoru

Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101158050
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
“The best novel William Gibson has ever written about the world we’re entering daily. Neuromancer made Gibson famous; Idoru cements that fame.”—The Washington Post Book World 21st century Tokyo, after the millennial quake. Neon rain. Light everywhere blowing under any door you might try to close. Where the New Buildings, the largest in the world, erect themselves unaided, their slow rippling movements like the contractions of a sea-creature... Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is an intuitive fisher for patterns of information, the “signature” an individual creates simply by going about the business of living. But Laney knows how to sift for the dangerous bits. Which makes him useful—to certain people. Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. She’s fourteen. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band Lo/Rez. When the Seattle chapter of the Lo/Rez fan club decided that he might be in trouble in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out. Rei Toei is the idoru—the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that has brought Chia to Tokyo. True or not, the idoru and the powerful interests surrounding her are enough to put all their lives in danger...

Virtual Reality and Light Field Immersive Video Technologies for Real-World Applications

Author: Gauthier Lafruit
Publisher: IET
ISBN: 1785615785
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
Inspired by MPEG-I and JPEG-PLENO standardization activities, this book is for readers who want to understand 3D representations and multi-camera video processing for novel immersive media applications. The authors address new challenges that arise beyond compression-only, such as depth acquisition and 3D rendering.

The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections

Author: DR. ENG Jenna Ng
Publisher: MediaMatters
ISBN: 9789463723541
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Screens are ubiquitous today. They display information; present image worlds; are portable; connect to mobile networks; mesmerize. However, contemporary screen media also seek to eliminate the presence of the screen and the visibilities of its boundaries. As what is image becomes increasingly indistinguishable against the viewer's actual surroundings, this unsettling prompts re-examination about not only what is the screen, but also how the screen demarcates and what it stands for in relation to our understanding of our realities in, outside and against images. Through case studies drawn from three media technologies - Virtual Reality; holograms; and light projections - this book develops new theories of the surfaces on and spaces in which images are displayed today, interrogating critical lines between art and life; virtuality and actuality; truth and lies. What we have today is not just the contestation of the real against illusion or the unreal, but the disappearance itself of difference and a gluttony of the unreal which both connect up to current politics of distorted truth values and corrupted terms of information. The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie is thus about not only where the image's borders and demarcations are established, but also the screen boundary as the instrumentation of today's intense virtualizations that do not tell the truth. In all this, a new imagination for images emerges, with a new space for cultures of presence and absence, definitions of object and representation, and understandings of dis- and re-placement - the post-screen.

The Light of the Midnight Stars

Author: Rena Rossner
Publisher: Redhook
ISBN: 031648363X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
Experience an evocative combination of fantasy, history, and Jewish folklore in this lush and lyrical fairytale-inspired novel from the author of The Sisters of the Winter Wood. Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they perform small miracles and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. Hannah, bookish and calm, can coax plants to grow even when the weather is bitterly cold. Sarah, defiant and strong, can control the impulsive nature of fire. And Levana, the fey one, can read the path of the stars to decipher their secrets. But darkness is creeping across Europe, threatening the lives of every Jewish person in every village. Each sister will have to make an impossible choice in an effort to survive—and change the fate of their family forever. Praise for The Light of the Midnight Stars: "Storytelling as spellcasting. Rossner has conjured something vivid and wild and true."—Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies "Rossner creates a lush, immersive world through which the sprawling plot meanders, punctuated by moments of intense grief. The result is as lovely as it is heartbreaking." —Publishers Weekly "Rossner's tale is as lyrical as the slow growth of roots, the quick dance of fire, and the stately procession of the stars. Blending folktale with history, hope with tragedy, its touch will linger on your heart long after you put it down."—Marie Brennan For more from Rena Rossner, check out The Sisters of the Winter Wood.

The View from Split Rock

Author: Lee Radzak
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781681341804
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
A modern lighthouse keeper tells the fascinating stories of his tenure at a celebrated historic site.

Stage Lighting

Author: Richard E. Dunham
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1317343948
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
The book’s organization follows a layered approach that builds on basic principles: Light as a Medium (Part 1), Tools of a Lighting Designer (Part 2), Design Fundamentals (Part 3), and Lighting Applications (Part 4). This presents students with a practical and logical sequence when learning basic concepts. The full spectrum of the lighting design process is presented in detail, giving students an example of how one might develop a lighting design from script analysis through concept and plot development, and all the way to an opening. This detailed process with a step-by-step design approach gives students a plan to work from, which they can later modify as they mature and gain confidence as designers. The text contains a more comprehensive discussion of basic technology, light as a physical phenomena, and methodology of designs than is found in most introductory texts, bridging the gap between introductory and advanced lighting courses. The text will appeal to theatrical designers who want to venture into areas of lighting like architectural or virtual lighting design, while at the same time gaining a solid grounding in the fundmentals of lighting design. Lighting Design will also benefit illuminating engineers who want to move away from mere computational approaches in lighting and on to explore techniques along the design approaches of theatrical lighting design. The final 9 chapters cover many specialty areas of lighting design, highlighting the unique and shared qualities that exist between the different aspects of these elements. Discussions involve traditional entertainment areas like theatre, as well as lesser known facets of the industry including film/video, landscape lighting, retail/museum lighting, virtual lighting, concert, spectacle performances, and architectural lighting. Models of design tasks demonstrate the actual use and development of plots/sections, schedules, photometrics tables, and cut sheets, rather than simply talking about what they are. This hands-on approach provides students with a firm understanding of how to actually use these tools and processes.

Postwestern Cultures

Author: Susan Kollin
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803215762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Synthesizes topics of contemporary scholarship of the American West. This work examines subjects ranging from the use of frontier rhetoric in Japanese American internment camp narratives to the emergence of agricultural tourism in the New West to the application of geographer J B Jackson's theories to vernacular or abandoned western landscapes.

Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep?

Author: Seo-Young Chu
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674059220
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Book Description
In culture and scholarship, science-fictional worlds are perceived as unrealistic and altogether imaginary. Seo-Young Chu offers a bold challenge to this perception of the genre, arguing instead that science fiction is a form of “high-intensity realism” capable of representing non-imaginary objects that elude more traditional, “realist” modes of representation. Powered by lyric forces that allow it to transcend the dichotomy between the literal and the figurative, science fiction has the capacity to accommodate objects of representation that are themselves neither entirely figurative nor entirely literal in nature. Chu explores the globalized world, cyberspace, war trauma, the Korean concept of han, and the rights of robots, all as referents for which she locates science-fictional representations in poems, novels, music, films, visual pieces, and other works ranging within and without previous demarcations of the science fiction genre. In showing the divide between realism and science fiction to be illusory, Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep? sheds new light on the value of science fiction as an aesthetic and philosophical resource—one that matters more and more as our everyday realities grow increasingly resistant to straightforward representation.