Alex MacKenzie - Böcker

This significant book provides a comprehensive analysis of the global dimension of European Union (EU) counter-terrorism. It focuses on the growth of the EU as a global counter-terrorism actor, from it having almost no role in 2001 to becoming a significantly greater force in recent years.Analysing one of the most important policy areas of European integration, authors Christian Kaunert, Alex MacKenzie and Sarah Léonard consider the key question of why the EU may have become a global actor in counter-terrorism. The authors then develop a unique theoretical approach in the form of actorness and collective securitization, which analyses the EU’s evolution as a counter-terrorism actor in different case studies, such as counter-terrorism in the transatlantic relationship, North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Overall, this book highlights that the EU is, in fact, becoming a counter-terrorism actor of growing importance and with an ever-diversifying number of policy options available.Addressing topical matters, this book will be a key resource for scholars, researchers and students in fields such as European studies, international relations, political science and governance. It will also attract the attention of practitioners, politicians, non-governmental and civil society organisations.

'DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Arts', is a singular effort, a visually exuberant work that is also on the vanguard of theoretical engagement, a symbiosis of form and content, in full-colour throughout, inclusive of extensive imagery, graphic intrigues and typographical accent-a rare and desirable art-infused statement of the city's media art scene-now. 'DAMP' is a long overdue critical engagement regarding the specificities of contemporary Vancouver media arts. The editors' effortis not so much to look to the past, nor to confine themselves within the borders of a collective of one sort or another. Their intent is to examine and speak to the now and the future of practice in Vancouver, its relationship to world art-media, and to the strategies of artists in this particular region. Origins of thought-from First Nations source code onwards-create a framework and starting point from which to study this mediacity. By re-focussing on the relative unknowns of this scene-the hidden and supressed histories, the city's internal and external mythologies and imaginary futures-they are revealing a plainly visible but unacknowledged praxis. 'DAMP' will act as a catalyst for discussion that stretches well beyond this locale, as it creates response and reaction from points east, internal, and beyond nation borders. 'DAMP' includes over 25 contributions from such artists as Laiwan, Fiona Bowie, Ann Marie Fleming, David Rimmer, Warren Arcan, and Yum Lam Li, and critical essays by such well respected Vancouver theorists as Clint Burnham, Jayce Salloum, and Randy Lee Cutler.

The Pacific Cinematheque Monograph Series was initiated to explore the spectrum of contributions and innovations of Western Canadian filmmakers, videomakers, and fringe media artists. Monograph Number One focuses, fittingly, on David Rimmer, one of Canada's foremost experimental filmmakers. There is no better way to start off Pacific Cinémathèque's Monograph Series, celebrating West Coast filmmakers, than with the work of David Rimmer. Mike Hoolboom's essay tantalizes us with a romantic myth that contextualizes David, while Alex MacKenzie's interview lets the artist speak for himself. Both offer a unique insight into the art practice of one of the most influential Canadian filmmakers of the 20th century. - Ann Marie Fleming, independent filmmaker and visual artist The most exciting non-narrative film I've ever seen ... images become polarized into grainy outlines, like drawings in white or colored chalk which gradually disintegrate and disappear. The film [Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper] resembles a painting floating through time, its subject disappearing and re-emerging in various degrees of abstraction. - Kristina Nordstrom, The Village Voice