Repainting the Walls of Lunda chronicles the publication and dissemination of an anthropology book; Paredes Pintadas da Lunda (Painted Walls of Lunda); which was published in Portuguese in 1953. The book featured illustrations of wall murals and sand drawings of the Chokwe peoples of northeastern Angola. These reproductions were adapted in postindependence Angolan nationalist art and postndash;civil war contemporary art. As Delinda Collier recounts; the pictorial narrative foregrounds the complex relationships between content; distribution; and politicization. The result is a nuanced look at the practices of art entangled in political economies as much as in issues of aesthetics.After historicizing the drastic changes in media for the Chokwe images; from sand and dwelling to book and from analog to digital; Collier analyzes the formal and infrastructural logic of the two-dimensional images in their subsequent formats; from postindependence canvas paintings to Internet images. Collier does not view any of these iterations as a negation or obliteration of the previous one. Instead; she argues that the logic of reproductive media envelops the past: each mediation adds another layer of context and content. As Collier sees it; the imagesrsquo; historicity is embedded within these media layers; which many Angolan postindependence artists speak of in terms of ghosts or ancestors when describing their encounter with reproductions of the Chokwe art.If; as Collier contends; ldquo;Africa troubles media;rdquo; this book troubles facile theories and romantic constructions of ldquo;analog Africa;rdquo; boundaries between art and cybernetics; and the firewall between the colonial and the postcolonial.
#1555035 in eBooks 2013-05-10 2013-05-10File Name: B01BY3ASBC
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A comprehensive exploration of visual communication research methodsBy ZzonkmilesKeith Kenney has written a comprehensive and well organized textbook whose primary strength is its versatility. While the title suggests that its content is only applicable to those studying visual communication (photovoice; image interpretation; etc.); it can easily serve as a primary or secondary textbook for a general graduate level mass communications couse.Each chapter follows a specific format in terms of how the material is divided; thus making it easy for the reader to quickly find what he is looking for and compare content across chapters. Kenneys writing style is also crisp and effective. New and veteran graduate students in mass communications should find his writing interesting and informative without being bogged down by excessive jargon.Each research method introduced in this textbook is accompanied by statements outlining their strengths; weaknesses; ethical concerns; and relevant units of analysis. This is not to say that Kenney oversimplifies matters; but it does show that a lot of concrete and practical material is crammed into under 300 pages of text.Another strength of this textbook is the inclusion of vignettes and case studies in each chapter. These case studies provide readers with a sense of the practical applications of these research methods. This is particularly useful to graduate students taking an introductory research methods; ethics; or theory course. Advanced students should find these case studies useful in that they can discuss how these cases could be improved.In general; Kenneys text is an interesting read that provides students of all levels with a firm understanding of research methods that could be applied outside of visual communication. His succinct writing style and clear explanations of new vocabulary make it suitable for new graduate students as well as more experienced ones. And the logical way in which he organized the chapters allows this text to serve as a quick reference guide once the content has been mastered.I would highly recommend this text for any graduate level mass communications program or for anyone who is interested in achieving competence in research design in general.
