Lev Manovich

Lew Manowitsch (Russian Лев Манович, scientific transliteration Lev Manović; * 1960 in Moscow ) is a Russian- American media theorist, critic and artist. He is currently a Professor of Fine Arts Art and Theory of New Media at the University of California at San Diego and at the Danube University Krems. His book The Language of New Media received more than 50 reviews in the trade press and has been translated into Italian, Korean, Polish and Chinese. Critics speak of " the first rigorous and comprehensive theoretical description of the topic " (CAA reviews ), it place the new media " in the most appealing and most far-reaching media history since Marshall McLuhan " ( telepolis ).

Biography

In Moscow Manowitsch studied art history, architecture and computer science. In 1981, he moved to New York and became in 1988 a Master of Arts in Cognitive Science at New York University and a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies ( University of Rochester, 1993). His dissertation The Engineering of Vision from Constructivism to Computers leads the origins of computer media back to the artistic avant-garde of the 1920s.

Manowitsch since 1984 works as an artist, computer animator, graphic designers and programmers with computer media. His art projects include several short films, including the first digital internet film project (1994 ), Freud - Lissitzky Navigator, a conceptual software to navigate through the history of the 20th century, as well as Anna and Andy, a streaming capable novel. His works have been included in several important international exhibitions of new media arts. In 2002, the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, a mini- retrospective entitled Lev Manovich: Adventures of Digital Cinema ago.

Manowitsch teaches since 1992 and held visiting professorships at the California Institute of the Arts, at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. He is also a sought-after guest speaker. Since 1999 he has held over 180 lectures on New Media in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Currently Manowitsch working on a new book called info - aesthetics. His latest art project called Soft Cinema was supported by the Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, where it was in 2002 and 2003 part of the exhibition Future Cinema, before it moved to Helsinki and Tokyo in 2003 and 2004.

Manowitschs works have won several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002-2003 by a Digital Cultures Fellowship from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2002, a fellowship from the Center for Literary Research in Berlin 2002 and a Mellon Fellowship at the California Institute of the Arts in 1995.

Works (excerpt)

• Tekstura: Russian Essays on Visual Culture. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA 1993.
• Black Box - White Cube. Merve Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-88396-197-3.