All the world's a stage - literally so, given the ubiquitous presence of webcams recording daily life in cities. This footage, allegedly documentary, recreates cities as cinematic environments as people interact with the multitudes of cameras and screens around them. Paula Albuquerque's original research and experimental films, presented in this groundbreaking book, expose fictionalising elements in archival webcams and explore video surveillance as an urban condition that influences both perceptions of the past and visions of the future.

About the Author
Dr Paula Albuquerque is a scholar and an artist who teaches at the University of Amsterdam and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She published articles in Necsus Journal, and in the forthcoming book Experimental Glitch, Bloomsbury. She showed films and other art work at, among others, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Reviews
"Something about Albuquerque's enthusiasm for the cinematic possibilities of the webcam is absolutely infectious. I confess that before reading the book, I had never really considered webcams as anything particularly valuable. ... Albuquerque's argument, however, is extremely well made, and her writing style made for one of the most readable scholarly pieces I've yet read. All in all, Albuquerque has written an excellent piece, and made a believer out of me." - Jonathan T. Pearce, Film Matters 10.2 (2019)

''Both innovative, intuitive, rigorous, and rich in theoretical advancements, The Webcam as an Emerging Cinematic Medium analyzes these different aesthetic forms with its characteristics, rules, and codes."
- Yves Laberge, Sequences, issue 339, 2024



Book Information
ISBN 9789462985582
Author Paula Albuquerque
Format Hardback
Page Count 244
Imprint Amsterdam University Press
Publisher Amsterdam University Press