Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Camouflage is an adaptive logic of escape from photographic representation. In Hide and Seek , Hanna Rose Shell traces the evolution of camouflage as it developed in counterpoint to technological advances in photography, innovations in warfare, and as-yet-unsolved mysteries of natural history. Today camouflage is commonly thought of as a textile pattern of interlocking greens and browns. But in Hide and Seek it reveals itself as much more -- a set of institutional structures, mixed-media art practices, and permutations of subjectivity, that emerged over the course of the twentieth century in environments increasingly mediated by photographic and cinematic intervention.

Through a series of fascinating case studies, Shell uncovers three conceptually linked species of photographic camouflage -- the static, the serial, and the dynamic -- and shows how each not only reflects the type of photographic reconnaissance it was meant to counter, but also contains aspects of the previously developed species. Hide and Seek develops its argument from the material forms camouflage has left behind -- photomontages, paper blankets, stuffed rabbits, ghillie suits, and instructional films.

Beginning in the domains of natural history and figurative art in the late nineteenth-century, continuing through the rise of aerial warfare in World War I, and onto the cinematic techniques designed to train snipers and civilians during World War II, this book is both a history and a theory of the drive to hide in plain sight.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. 9)
• Introduction (p. 13)
• I Productive Mimesis and the Art of Disappearance: Instantaneous Photography and Abbott Thayer's Modeling of Invisibility in Nature and Man (p. 25)
• II Mending the Net: Camouflage, Serial Photography, and the Suture of Self-Effacement and Reconnaissance (p. 77)
• III How Not to Be Seen: Dynamic Camouflage and the Motion Films often Lye (p. 127)
• iv Subject to Change: Skin as Screen (p. 171)
• Acknowledgments (p. 195)
• Color Plates (p. 199)
• Notes (p. 203)
• Index (p. 231)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Shell (science, technology, & society, MIT) contends that the history of camouflage is closely linked to the development of photographic media, particularly as it is used in military reconnaissance. This interdependent relationship is explored in three ways: static, serial, and dynamic. Shell uses artist Abbott Thayer's investigation of animal mimicry to explain static camouflage, in which an animal is capable of blending into its surroundings for a single moment. She presents military netting, which was necessitated by advances in aerial photography, as an example of serial camouflage used to hide military activities over time. She goes on to explore real-time media surveillance, or dynamic camouflage, via the experimental films of Len Lye. Shell concludes that these three modes of concealment are used simultaneously and continue shaping the future of camouflage. Black-and-white photos and a set of color plates illustrate complex technologies. VERDICT Shell's well-researched text will appeal to particular audiences interested in technical photography, warfare, and surveillance. Though not difficult to read, ample details and lengthy explanations may not appeal to a general audience.-Shannon Marie Robinson, Univ. of the Arts Libs., Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.