War Souvenir.War Souvenir by Paolo Ventura, foreword by Francine Prose Francine Prose (born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American novelist. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968, and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. She has sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award, and her novel Blue Angel . Contrasto/108 pp./[euro]32.00 (hb). Souvenirs, like photographs, offer a sense of physical connection to immaterial memories and experiences of history and place. In War Souvenir, Paolo Ventura creates a series of photographic monuments through obsessively detailed recreations of World War II-era scenes in his native Italy. Part architectural photographer, prop and lighting artist, and set-designer, Ventura suggests theater on a dollhouse scale in his images. He has humanized G.I. Joe-sized figurines with layers of tiny fastidious fas·tid·i·ous adj. 1. Possessing or displaying careful, meticulous attention to detail. 2. Difficult to please; exacting. 3. Having complex nutritional requirements. Used of microorganisms. detail--veins in the hands, an unlaced boot--and a staged environment of chipping paint and peeling posters on the wall. I mistakenly thought the opening image was contemporary journalistic photography when I first viewed the series in another context, and I was surprised at the frank depiction of a casualty in a climate of media control. I felt moved by the image of the dead soldier lying in a sickeningly twisted position, his face and uniform obscured by layers of dirt. Even after I discovered the "truth" of the setup, I began to focus again on the drama of each scene and less on the question of realism. Though particular to a time and place, Ventura's work has a universal quality as if it were every war, retold re·told v. Past tense and past participle of retell. , replayed, miniaturized, and enlarged--visually distorted but emotionally accurate. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JOANNA HEATWOLE is Assistant Professor of Time-Based Media at Roberts Wesleyan College Roberts Wesleyan College is a Christian liberal arts college located in North Chili, New York. It is the first educational institution established for Free Methodists in North America. in Rochester, New York This article is about the city of Rochester in Monroe County. For the town in Ulster County, see Rochester, Ulster County, New York. Rochester, once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City or . Media produced by the Media Education Foundation (www.mediaed.org): Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs, DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. or VHS (Video Home System) A half-inch, analog videocassette recorder (VCR) format introduced by JVC in 1976 to compete with Sony's Betamax, introduced a year earlier. , 46 mins., $19.95. Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class, DVD or VHS, 62 mins., $19.95. Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire, DVD or VHS, 64 mins., $19.95. Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, DVD or VHS, 80 mins., $29.95. |
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