Tuesday, September 11, 2007

In Stubborn Praise of Information (now online)

This text is now available online. It's a fantastic piece, one of a pair of articles written after the first Gulf War (the other one is here) which marked the time when Serge Daney decided to quit writing about television after years of doing so for the French newspaper Libération .

In Stubborn Praise of Information
Originally published as "Eloge têtu de l'information" in Libération on 31 October 1990 and reprinted in Devant la recrudescence des vols de sacs à main, cinéma, television, information, Aléas 1991. Published in English in Continuous Project #8, CNEAI, France, 2006.

It's one of the best translations I’ve seen along with Chris Darke's piece. It really conveys the sharpness of Daney's style in English

Many thanks to the anonymous comment on this blog pointing to this piece and to Seth Price, the translator, for allowing this text to be available online.

3 comments:

  1. Maurizio Lazzarato's article, 'Strategies of the political entrepreneur', in SubStance 112 (2007), makes good use of Daney's observations on advertising (specifically Benetton ads). Not many translated pasasages, I'm afraid,
    but an interesting development of Daney's ideas, and a recognition of Daney as 'one of the major French critics of the image.'

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  2. Hi -- A google search of 'Daney' and 'Ceausescu' led me here, although I can't find anything in the blog on it. I'm trying to find Daney's writings on the execution -- could you point me in the right direction?

    Thanks!

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  3. g-rod,

    Serge Daney's article on the execution of the Ceausescus ("Nicolae and Elena Bequeath their Bodies to TV") has not been properly translated. That's why it's not on this blog. The article is in Cinema in Transit - a failed attempt at a english-language book of Daney's writings. You may be able to get a copy via Steve Erickson. See the Daney section of his website: http://home.earthlink.net/~steevee/

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