Materials, Practices, and Politics of Shine in Modern Art and Popular Culture

Shine allures and awakens desire. As a phenomenon of perception shiny things and materials fascinate and tantalize. They are a formative element of material culture, promising luxury, social distinction and the hope of limitless experience and excess. Since the early twentieth century the mass production, dissemination and popularization of synthetic materials that produce heretofore-unknown effects of shine have increased. At the same time, shine is subjectified as “glamor” and made into a token of performative self-empowerment.

The volume illuminates genealogical as well as systematic relationships between material phenomena of shine and cultural-philosophical concepts of appearance, illusion, distraction and glare in bringing together renowned scholars from various disciplines.