Making Images Move
Handmade Cinema and the Other Arts

University of California Press | January 2020 | First Edition | 392 pages | Hardcover, Paperback, eBook

Reviews
“Devoid of zeitgeisty romanticizations of the analog, Gregory Zinman’s book, Making Images Move, presents a defiant yet clear-eyed alternative history of the origins of cinema.” —Abby Sun, Film Comment
Lucid, smart, but entirely readable, and compellingly illuminated with colour illustrations of the wonders it describes, Making Images Move is formidable historiography: it’s a volume you’ll want to display proudly on your shelf, somewhere between Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema and Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art. High praise indeed, but Zinman easily earns it….Making Images Move is a song of everything, and the lattice of names, gizmos, artifacts, cultural moments, and political manifestos written in light that Zinman has interwoven throughout is exhilarating….It’s a major work. —Chuck Stephens, Cinema Scope
“Written with careful precision and breadth. . . chronicling a rich, 100-year history of handmade moviemaking in which artists similarly trespass into other areas of creative practice.” —Holly Willis, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Despite the difficulty of abstract visual description, Zinman’s writing is clear and direct, informed by historical research, incorporating artist’s interviews with rich theoretical insights…If formalism is a starting point, however, it is clearly not Zinman’s endgame, as he elucidates significant political implications throughout.” —James Hansen, Millennium Film Journal
“Gregory Zinman traces a bold new path through the history of media art. Putting aside the emphasis on photographic representation that has been a near-constant in debates concerning filmic ontology, Zinman turns to the handmade and the abstract, finding there a rich set of artistic practices and an opportunity to probe timely theoretical questions. Essential reading for scholars of contemporary art and media.”—Erika Balsom, author of After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation
“Making Images Move offers at once a lively account of cameraless cinemas, an invaluable supplement to the study of experimental and avant-garde film, and a compendium to the study of contemporary digital and interactive cinemas that have redefined the conventions of commercial entertainment.”—Akira Lippit, author of Cinema without Reflection: Jacques Derrida’s Echopoiesis and Narcissism Adrift?
“A much-needed celebration of the achievements of these artists, many of whom are almost entirely unaccounted for in the literature of the field. Zinman has unearthed a wealth of original material in this comprehensive and compelling history.”—Roger Rothman, author of Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small
“Gregory Zinman expands and deepens our understanding of the impact of the moving image on art and culture. He deftly constructs a critical method and historiography that embraces diverse modalities of moving-image making, and in the process, he rethinks the boundaries of the moving image itself. There’s a lot to discover in this book! An important and beautifully illustrated volume that should be read by every student of film, video, media, and art history.”—John Hanhardt, curator and author of Bill Viola
For more information about ‘Making Images Move,’ please visit the University of California Press or contact Gregory Zinman.