Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film by Fabijančić, Tony;

Short description:

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film explores four key types of anamorphic distortion in media across several centuries.

Long description:

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film explores four key types of anamorphic distortion in media across several centuries.

Every work of art that involves anamorphosis invites the viewer or reader to decrypt its distortional elements, resolve confusion and seek understanding, creating a balance between disruption and wholeness. To do this with the works examined—ranging from Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors to Hamlet to Mulholland Drive— the book favours close, almost archaeological readings of works instead of analyses relying primarily on hegemonic academic theory, which often imposes external meanings and focuses on uncovering flaws or hidden ideologies. The author resists theory’s invasive tendency toward negativity and disconfirmation bias—interpreting texts based on preconceived assumptions, often ignoring what genuinely draws people to art and literature. While the search for ‘the secret perspective’ might seem similar to theoretical critique, this book is set apart by its method of emphasizing the discovery of anamorphic elements from within the work itself and by its selective use of theory. The goal is an open, nuanced, stereoscopic analysis of anamorphosis across time.

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film is intended for scholars, students and general readers of art and the history of ideas in the humanities.  

"In Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film, TONY FABIJANČIĆ discusses the hidden view of anamorphosis – forms of distortion or a reforming – in a range of literature, art and film, ranging between theory and practice and bringing a comparative perspective that should help the reader see anew and find different angles of insight and interpretation."

--Jonathan Locke Hart, Harvard University/University of Toronto, Canada

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film is a welcome alternative engagement for thinking about theories of reading, interpretation, and meaning making. The book’s conceptual foundation animates ‘reading’ as perceptual encounter and discovery beyond conventional conditioning. Tony Fabijančić defines and then applies anamorphic modes of perception (writ large) across a range of aesthetic objects in order to unsettle and reposition established valuations. When familiar works are studied from this new perspective, they render up ‘secrets’ which the viewer then unlocks through the exploratory practice of close attention and receptivity to new interpretations.

 -- Anett K. Jessop, The University of Texas at Tyler, USA

Table of Contents:

Introduction Chapter 1. A Forming Anew Chapter 2. Distorted Registers Chapter 3. The Tangential Clairvoyant Chapter 4. Anagrammatic Encryption Conclusion