Norman M. Klein

Norman M. Klein
Born Brooklyn, New York
Nationality American
Education University of Southern California; University of Illinois; University of Minnesota; Brooklyn College Cinema, Professional Writing, and History
Known for Media Historian, Social Critic, Novelist, Educator
Awards Graham Foundation, Art Center Faculty Enrichment Grant, California Council for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Mellon Foundation Creative Leave

Norman M. Klein is a Los-Angeles based urban and media historian whose fictional works "interweave fiction with social criticism, reportage and confessional memoire…fiction of a loose and absurdist sort, separated from fact by the blurriest of boundaries."[1] In 2011, the Los Angeles Times put Klein's 1997 book The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory on its "Best L.A. Books" list.[2]

Since 1974, Klein has been Professor in the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts,[3] where he is on the faculty of both the Master's Program in Aesthetics and Politics and the Center for Integrated Media. As layered systems that resemble certain genres of games and other media narrative formats, Klein's novels primarily offer literary alternatives. Having coined the term "scripted space" in 1998, Klein (with Margo Bistis) coined "wunder roman" in 2012 to characterize a particular kind of picaresque novel whose component parts function like a narrative engine.

"Klein's findings will be useful for the shaping of the rising new narrative and expressive forms, in the same way findings of Griffith, Eisenstein or Melies helped to set what we know today as the film form."-Caitlin Fisher, founder Future Cinema Lab, York University[4]

In 2004, the Beall Center for Art and Technology organized a retrospective of Klein's work.[5]

Early life and career

Born in Brooklyn, Norman Klein grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where he regularly heard people tell stories that were half-true and half not, which informed his view of people's personal histories.[6] In 1966, he earned a B.A. in History at Brooklyn College and then went on to the University of Minnesota, where he earned an M.A. in French Intellectual History in 1968. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began teaching at California Institute of the Arts prior to earning his M. F. A. in Cinema and Professional Writing from the University of Southern California.

Teaching

In addition to having taught at Cal Arts for over four decades, Klein has taught adjunct at Art Center College of Design (1982-2016), University of Southern California (1994-2000 and 2013), Woodbury University (2012-2013), University of California, San Diego (1998), University of California Los Angeles (1999-2000), and Southern California Institute of Architecture (1997-2008). Since 2014, he has led media workshops at The New School, USC Interactive Media Division, University of California Irvine, Karlsruhe University of Art and Design. Between 1998 and 2014, he led media workshops at universities, art schools, and corporate offices in Amsterdam, Baltimore, Berlin, Brussels, London, Mexico City, Milwaukee, Oslo, Palo Alto, Portland, and Vienna.

Works (Books and Multi-media Projects)

The Imaginary 20th Century co-authored with Margo Bistis- a book (2016) and narrative media archive (2014)[7]

The Imaginary 20th Century "not only negotiates the question of where the line should be drawn between fact and memory, but the book doubles as a puzzle. [Its] central sentence reads: 'The future can only be told in reverse'. This aphorism is as paradoxical as it is true. Because after all, it is --among other things --about four visions of the future, but a future that lies in the past; getting reconstructed from the fragments of the archive."-Hans Ulrich Obrist[8]

"The Imaginary 20th Century is in the very first place a springboard in the history of the combination of print and online storytelling. It brings together some major achievements of what is possible online, and only online, while not being afraid of leaping into the history of the novel in order to revisit the heritage of the picaresque novel."-Jans Baetens[9]

Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales (2006)[10]

"Sigmund Freud did visit Coney Island in 1909. That much is true, but we know next to nothing about his day at the beach, so Klein takes the opportunity to fill in the blanks. Klein's conceit is that Freud's memory of Coney Island came to haunt him. [Freud realized] that the individual unconscious might be ‘colonized’ ‘by a globalized Coney Island, by machines that harvest and industrialize collective desire’, [leaving us] ‘hollowed out’ with nothing but ‘a looming sadness, a void’." -Ben Ehrenreich[1]

The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects (2004)[11]

"The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects is one of the most astounding, exciting, infuriating, murder-making books I have ever read. Klein sees Hollywood and its special-effects artistry as providing an organic connection between the popular culture's architectural and theatrical forms and a kind of virtual space common today."- David Thomson[12]

Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 (novella and DVD)(2003)[13]

"Framed as an interactive mystery in which an elderly Angelino Heights resident named Molly may or may not have killed her second husband, Walt, it is more a ‘bildungsroman in which no one learns enough about anything’, a crime fiction in which ‘[t]he journey through the evidence is more exciting than the crime itself’. Part of Klein's intention is to expose the artifice of storytelling by uncovering the background, what Don DeLillo calls the ‘underhistory’ –the invisible material that readers never see. At the same time, Klein is after something more expansive, a form in which resolution is less important than possibility."-Los Angeles Times Books Editor David L. Ulin.[14]

Bleeding Through won a Special Award for New Media at the 2004 Split Film Festival.[15]

One of three nominations for the "Image Award" at transmediale.04, Bleeding Through won second prize.[16]

The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (1997/2008)[17]

"Norman M. Klein has made a career out of mining the impressionistic territory of memory from a cultural and an individual point of view.…[H]e sees L.A. as a landscape of amnesia, in which the past is either a burden or nostalgic, depending on how one puts it to use. This is especially true of the city center, where Klein has focused many of his investigations, deconstructing neighborhoods like Bunker Hill or Angelino Heights."-David L. Ulin.[14]

7 Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon (1993)[18]

"Norman Klein in his remarkable 7 Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon has accomplished what is by no means a minor miracle...the work is erudite, witty, comprehensive, and just plain fun.-Chuck Jones

"This book is an important contribution to the history of American popular culture and a gold mine of suggestive insights into the inner workings of the cartoon business.-Karal Ann Marling[19]

Twentieth Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict (1990)[21]

"Klein's purpose is to dig through the layers of promotional rhetoric laying atop critical Los Angeles themes: weather, transportation, ethnic diversity. His tools are the methodologies of social history and art historical reception aesthetics." -William Deverell, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West[22]

Museum Catalog Essays

Klein has written catalog essays for Doug Aitken,[23] Chip Lord,[24] "The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside,"[25] "More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness,"[26] "Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach 1974-1999,"[27] Simon Denny,[28] Kutluğ Ataman,[29] Karina Nimmerfall,[30] Rossen Crow,[31] Peter Friedl,[32] Christian Jankowski,[33] Bjørn Melhus,[34] George Stone,[35] "Las Vegas Aesthetics,"[36] "Animations,"[37] "Au-Delà du Spectacle,"[38] "Reading California,"[39] Martin Kippenberger,[40] and Helter Skelter.[41]

Digital Media Theory

Klein's most cited publications on digital media include "After the Crash: Imagining New Paradigms for the Study of Collective Memory,"[42] "Labor, Architecture and the New Feudalism: Urban Space as Experience,"[43] "Spaces Between: Traveling Through Bleeds, Apertures, and Wormholes inside the Database Novel,"[44] and "Media as an Instrument of Power."[45]

Conferences and Key Notes

Conferences organized around Klein's work have occurred at Martos Gallery, Culver City, US; Centro College of Art and Design, Mexico City, MX; Victoria and Albert Museum, FACT (Liverpool), Western Literature Association, Wellesley College, Pasadena City College, Goethe Institute and University of California Los Angeles Department of Architecture, Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg and Art Center College of Design.

Klein has delivered keynote addresses at conferences organized by ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, He Xiangning Art Museum, Coney Island Museum, Las Vegas Book Festival, Consortium of Southern California Art Schools, University of California Irvine, Southern California Institute of Architecture and Walker Art Center.

References

  1. 1 2 Ben Ehrenreich. "Old Haunts Revisited."The Los Angeles Times. July 2, 2006.
  2. ↑ Christopher Reynolds. "The Best L.A. Books? Let's Make a List (Part 2, nonfiction)."The Los Angeles Times. October 4, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Norman Klein - Faculty/Staff Directory". Directory.calarts.edu.
  4. ↑ "The difficult birth of transmedia storytelling - Future Cinema". Yorku.ca. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ Interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist. 2015.
  7. ↑ The Imaginary 20th Century. Karlsruhe. KZM Center for Art & Media. 2016.
  8. ↑ Hans Ulrich Obrist. "Review: The Imaginary 20th Century."Das Magazin.Nadja Diedrich (translator)
  9. ↑ Jans Baetens. "Norman M. Klein & Margo Bistis, The Imaginary 20th Century." Image [&] Narrative. 17:3 (2016).pp. 117-118.
  10. ↑ Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales. Los Angeles. Otis Books/Seismicity Editions. 2006.
  11. ↑ The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects . New York. New Press. 2004.
  12. ↑ David Thomson. "He Reads the Script."The Los Angeles Times. March 21, 2014.
  13. ↑ Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986. Karlsruhe. Annenberg Center for Communication; Los Angeles. and KZM Center for Art and Media. 2003.
  14. 1 2 David L. Ulin. "Los Angeles: The Parable."The Los Angeles Times. January 18, 2004.
  15. ↑ "2004 - SPLIT FILM FESTIVAL - MFNF". Splitfilmfestival.hr. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  16. ↑ "[transmediale] transmediale.04 award nominations". Mailman.transmediale.in-berlin.de. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  17. ↑ The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. London. Verso. 1997. Revised edition 2008
  18. ↑ 7 Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. London. Verso. 1993.
  19. ↑ Karal Ann Marling.Journal of American History.100:1 (March 1995).
  20. ↑ Twentieth-Century Art Theory. Co-edited with Richard Hertz. Upper Saddle River. Prentice-Hall. 1990.
  21. ↑ Twentieth Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict . Co-edited with Martin Schiesl. New York. Regina. 1990.
  22. ↑ William Deverell. "Book Review: Twentieth Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict." Southern California Quarterly. 74:1 (Spring 1992). pp. 117-120.
  23. ↑ "A Granular History of Space: Doug Aitken."Doug Aitken: Electric Earth. Los Angeles. Museum of Contemporary Art. 2016.
  24. ↑ "A Revised History of the Screen in Three Stages." Chip Lord. College Park. University of Maryland. 2015.
  25. ↑ "Whole Earths, 1968-1980." The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside . Berlin. Haus der Kulturen der Welt. 2013.
  26. ↑ "The Charm of the Lie." More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness. Minneapolis. Minneapolis Institute of Art. 2012.
  27. ↑ "The Ironies of Global Video, 1973-2000." Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach 1974-1999. Long Beach. Long Beach Museum of Art. 2012.
  28. ↑ "Suburban Ruin: Notes on the Dismantling of the American Psyche." Cruise Line. Aachen. Neuer Aachener Kunstverein. 2011
  29. ↑ "Paradises." Kutluğ Ataman: Paradise. Newport Harbor. Orange County Museum of Art. 2007.
  30. ↑ "Cinematic Photography and the Misremembering of the City." Karina Nimmerfall: Cinematic Maps, 2004-2006. Graz. Camera Austria. 2007.
  31. ↑ "Historical Paintings of the Global Present."Night of the Palomino. Los Angeles. Honor Fraser Inc. 2007.
  32. ↑ "Grounding Play: Imaginary Children in An Era of Global Paranoia." Peter Friedl:Theory of Justice 1964-2006. Barcelona. MACBA. 2006.
  33. ↑ "A Spot in Time: Christian Jankowski's Startling Special Effect." Everything Fell Together. Des Moines. Des Moines Art Center. 2006.
  34. ↑ "How to Irrigate Your Personality: The Hollowing Out of America." Bjørn Melhus: Auto Center Drive. Stuttgart. Hatje Cantz. 2005.
  35. ↑ "Fault Lines: The Machines of George Stone." George Stone: Probabilities. Los Angeles. Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. 2003.
  36. ↑ "Vegaesthetics." The Magic Hour: The Convergene of Art and Las Vegas. Graz. Neue Galerie. 2001.
  37. ↑ "Animations: Painting with a Machine Gun." Animations. Long Island City. MoMA/PS1. 2001.
  38. ↑ "Architainment, The Industrialization of Desire, 1955-2010." Au-Delà du Spectacle. Paris. Centre Pompidou. 2000.
  39. ↑ "Gold Fevers: Global California and the Social Imaginary." Reading California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000. Los Angeles. Los Angeles County Art Museum. 2000.
  40. ↑ "Kippenberger's Folies." Martin Kippenberger: The Last Stop West. Stuttgart. Hatje Cantz. 1999.
  41. ↑ "The Consumer-Built City: Sixty Years of Apocalyptic Imagery." Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s. Los Angeles. Museum of Contemporary Art. 1992.
  42. ↑ Erasure: The Spectre of Memory. John Conomos (ed.). London. Libri. 2015.
  43. ↑ Architecture and the Worker. Peggy Deamer (ed.). London. Bloomsbury. 2015.
  44. ↑ Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardip-Fruin (eds.). Cambridge. MIT Press. 2009.
  45. ↑ Iconoclash. Bruno Latour (ed.).Cambridge. MIT Press. 2002.
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