the mechanization of the magical sign

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Next week the Sonic Acts festival will take place again, with an amazing line-up this year. Apart from the great performances, exhibition, film programs and conference, the festival will also see the launch of the book that was the result of a conference in Gent last year, the Cimatics festival in Brussels and the preparations leading up to this year’s Sonic Acts. The book contains an essay I wrote after my talk in Gent, entitled “The Mechanization of the Magical Sign”. On the 23rd of february I will give a lecture at Sonic Acts restating the main points from that essay.
The blurb reads: “The myths about the origin of cinema often focus on the photorealism of the medium‭. ‬However, it is highly questionable whether the power of film images, or even their realism, ultimately derives from their illusory qualities. ‬In his lecture Joost Rekveld ‬will explore some facets of an approach to images which emphasizes their artificiality and their power as active, magical signs through which our world is constructed.”

The book will soon be available through Amazon and the Sonic Acts website, and it is already for sale through SIM-central.