The Unconcept is the first genealogy of the concept of the Freudian uncanny, tracing the development, paradoxes and movements of this negative concept through various fields and disciplines from psychoanalysis, literary theory and philosophy to film studies, genre studies, sociology, religion, architecture theory, and contemporary art. Anneleen Masschelein explores the vagaries of this 'unconcept' in the twentieth century, beginning with Freud's seminal essay 'The Uncanny,' through a period of conceptual latency, leading to the first real conceptualizations in the 1970s and then on to the present dissemination of the uncanny to exotic fields such as hauntology, the study of ghosts, robotics and artificial intelligence. She unearths new material on the uncanny from the English, French and German traditions, and sheds light on the specific status of the concept in contemporary theory and practice in the humanities. This essential reference book for researchers and students of the uncanny is written in an accessible style. Through the lens of the uncanny, the familiar contours of the intellectual history of the twentieth century appear in a new and exciting light.

In Pictopia is the legendary comic created in 1986, written b y the era's most adventurous mainstream comics writer and drawn by a bevy of indie cartoonists — helmed by Don Simpson, with Mike Kazaleh, Pete Poplaski, and Eric Vincent. Presented here for the first time, scanned from the original line art and full-color painted boards, in an appropriately oversized format. Pictopia is the allegorical city inhabited by old, forgotten, but once famous and iconic comics characters, now considered pitiable has-beens by the popular new comics characters who are cheerfully and inevitably taking their places in the pop culture panteon of celebrity. It is both a paean to timeless, beloved comics characters and a scathing critique of the then-contemporary comics sub-culture.

This three volume set LNCS 12779, 12780, and 12781 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability, DUXU 2021, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2021, which took place in July 2021. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held virtually. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 submissions. The papers of DUXU 2021, Part I, are organized in topical sections named: UX Design Methods and Techniques; Methods and Techniques for UX Research; Visual Languages and Information Visualization; Design Education and Practice.

This collection offers a comprehensive treatment of emoticons, kaomoji, and emoji, examining these digital pictograms and ideograms from a range of perspectives to comprehend their increasing role in the transformation of communication in the digital age. Featuring a detailed introduction and eleven contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, the volume begins by outlining the history and development of the field, situating emoticons, kaomoji, and emoji – expressing a variety of moods and emotional states, facial expressions, as well as all kinds of everyday objects– as both a topic of global relevance but also within multimodal, semiotic, picture theoretical, cultural and linguistic research. The book shows how the interplay of these systems with text can alter and shape the meaning and content of messaging and examines how this manifests itself through different lenses, including the communicative, socio-political, aesthetic, and cross-cultural. Making the case for further study on emoticons, kaomoji, and emoji and their impact on digital communication, this book is key reading for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, media studies, Japanese studies, and language and communication.

Investigations into how technologies became peculiar forms of politics in an expanded geography of the Cold War. The Cold War was not simply a duel of superpowers. It took place not just in Washington and Moscow but also in the social and political arenas of geographically far-flung countries emerging from colonial rule. Moreover, Cold War tensions were manifest not only in global political disputes but also in struggles over technology. Technological systems and expertise offered a powerful way to shape countries politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Entangled Geographies explores how Cold War politics, imperialism, and postcolonial nation building became entangled in technologies and considers the legacies of those entanglements for today's globalized world. The essays address such topics as the islands and atolls taken over for military and technological purposes by the supposedly non-imperial United States, apartheid-era South Africa's efforts to achieve international legitimacy as a nuclear nation, international technical assistance and Cold War politics, the Saudi irrigation system that spurred a Shi'i rebellion, and the momentary technopolitics of emergency as practiced by Medecins sans Frontières. The contributors to Entangled Geographies offer insights from the anthropology and history of development, from diplomatic history, and from science and technology studies. The book represents a unique synthesis of these three disciplines, providing new perspectives on the global Cold War.

This is the first-ever in-depth publication to combine works by 30 international artists, commissioned installations, and theoretical texts from the fields of philosophy, robotics, cultural history, psychoanalysis, and design theory.

Prepare yourself for a journey through the world of Patton Oswalt, one of the most creative, insightful, and hysterical voices on the entertain­ment scene today. Widely known for his roles in the films Big Fan and Ratatouille, as well as the television hit The King of Queens, Patton Oswalt—a staple of Comedy Central—has been amusing audiences for decades. Now, with Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he offers a fascinating look into his most unusual, and lovable, mindscape. Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remem­bers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, includ­ing a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch. Then there’s the book’s centerpiece, which posits that before all young creative minds have anything to write about, they will home in on one of three story lines: zom­bies, spaceships, or wastelands. Oswalt chose wastelands, and ever since he has been mining our society’s wasteland for perversion and excess, pop culture and fatty foods, indie rock and single-malt scotch. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is an inventive account of the evolution of Patton Oswalt’s wildly insightful worldview, sure to indulge his legion of fans and lure many new admirers to his very entertaining “wasteland.”

In 1976, a fledgling magazine held forth the the idea that comics could be art. In 2016, comics intended for an adult readership are reviewed favorably in the New York Times, enjoy panels devoted to them at Book Expo America, and sell in bookstores comparable to prose efforts of similar weight and intent. We Told You So: Comics as Art is an oral history about Fantagraphics Books’ key role in helping build and shape an art movement around a discredited, ignored and fading expression of Americana. It includes appearances by Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Harlan Ellison, Stan Lee, Daniel Clowes, Frank Miller, and more.

Whether they appear as painted stones, smiling houses, Nick Park-like clay figures or classical cartoons, characters are still the best way to create visuals with which one can identify. Peter Thaler has built upon the success of "Pictoplasma," one of dgv's best-selling titles of all time. Avoiding the lure of creating a straightforward sequel or the simple repetition of his winning formula, he has once again distilled a fine selection of first-rate works from over 9,000 entries. While the traditional role of these loveable icons as commercial branding tools remains important, this volume also touches on the vital new design impulses that have enriched the picto realm during the last few years. More and more often, designers are taking their favourites from the drawing board and computer to the streets as customised objects, urban art and graffiti. Parallel to an overall trend to shake off the shackles of two dimensions, even more of Thaler's selections have made the jump into the third dimension. For example, cute to grotesque action figures, which are increasingly coveted by adult collectors, are spread across the pages in perfect harmony with traditional graphic design and illustrations by both talented newcomers and stars like Peter Fowler. No matter if it's scribbles, freehand or vector designs, puppets, street art or abstraction: Pictoplasma 2's prime focus remains the development of interesting character ideas and the fertile exchange between different styles and media.