Reframing Consciousness ed. by Roy Ascott (review)

Leonardo Reviews 335 all things that can show a profit. Also published is a great amount of near-scientific shamanism (parapsychology, theosophy and so on). At the same time, it should be noted that there also appear serious publications in the field of psychology , philosophy, history and art theory by both Russian and foreign authors (in Russian translation). It is true that all these editions are now very expensive (otherwise, it would be impossible to profit while printing high-quality books in small press runs). Besides this, we must note a peculiarity: for the most part, Russian readers will only be acquainted with Western literature published before 1973. That year, the USSR signed the Bern Convention, which made it incumbent upon publishers to observe foreign authors’ rights to royalties . That is why Russian book publishers so actively translate books published before 1973. The book reviewed here is a prominent example of such “simple arithmetic.” Nonetheless, it must be emphasized that this fact does not lessen the book’s value, since it presents materials that do not become obsolete with time. Any scholar of cultural history must know of this edition. Half the book is composed of papers from the conference “The Realms of Color,” held in 1972 in Switzerland. It includes such works as “Conception of Color and Color Symbolism in the Ancient World,” by Christopher Rowe and “White, Red, and Black: Color Symbolism in Black Africa,” by Dominique Zahan. Returning to Europe, Ernst Benz familiarizes us with the problem “Color in Christian Apparitions.” Studying the “theology of color,” he presents, after a “color analysis” of biblical and evangelical texts, a survey of, so to speak, personal conceptions of color, including such names as Dionysius the Areopagite, Jacob Boehme, Emanuel Swedenborg, J.W. Goethe and others. The historical, ethnographic and cultural-anthropological material of these articles is undoubtedly of great interest, especially when compared with one another. Immediately connected with the theme of art is the article “Color and Expression of Internal Time in the West European Painting,” by Rene Huyghe. Of special interest here is the thorough analysis of analogy between color and music, which, perhaps, is not comprehended by artists and rests upon the fact that both color and music are for Europeans synonymous with sensuality and soul. Then, quite unexpectedly , there appear in this collection of papers extensive fragments from the well-known work “On the Spiritual in Art” by W. Kandinsky (the Russian text is here taken from an American edition [New York, 1977, in Russian]; this fact, unfortunately, was not mentioned by the publisher). After this unexpected “intrusion” of such recent conceptions of color psychology and aesthetics, the compiler returns anew to the “historical and regional” principle by introducing another report taken from the conference in Switzerland, “Elimination of Color in Art and Philosophy of the Far East,” by Toshihiko Izutsu. It is very difficult to comprehend the logic of the collection’s compiler, a certain S.L. Udovik. After a tour of the picturesque pasts of Japan and China, the reader, again quite unexpectedly, finds reprinted material from well-known Soviet film producer S. Eisenstein’s “Color in Cinema.” The book is completed by fragments taken from Goethe’s work “Studies of Color.” The collection’s compiler warns that this work of Goethe could stand equally at the very beginning of the book, hinting that he thereby pays a compliment to the great German poet. Of course, such a “cocktail” prepared from such different works has a right to existence, the more so since not every gourmet has such fastidious tastes as I. In spite of the fact that the readers could familiarize themselves with the works of Goethe, Kandinsky and Eisenstein in earlier basic Russian editions , this collection of papers (though of such variety) on the psychology and aesthetics of color will undoubtedly be useful for Russian readers. As for Leonardo readers, I hope that it will be useful for them to know more about the complicated conditions and situations under which their colleagues in presentday Russia obtain their knowledge. REFRAMING CONSCIOUSNESS edited by Roy Ascott. Intellect Books, Exeter, U.K., 1999. 313 pp. ISBN: 1-84150-013-5. Reviewed by Prasad Rao...