Media Primitivism

“Delinda Collier's Media Primitivism is a remarkable journey into the intellectual development of twentieth-century African art and how art objects themselves resist the categories accorded to them. Theoretically sophisticated and brilliantly argued, Media Primitivism poses a serious challenge to those who like their African art suspended in a primordial past.” — Steven Nelson, author of From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture In and Out of Africa

“Media Primitivism is an important book that will resituate both media history and the historiography of African art. Delinda Collier convincingly argues that, from electronic music to world cinema, African technologies are not additions to electricity-based media but function as the very basis of them. The historiography is thrilling, the aesthetic analyses compelling, and the theoretical synthesis at times breathtaking.” — Laura U. Marks, author of Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image