Broadway avenue in downtown Los Angeles holds an extraordinary collection of twelve once-luxurious and now abandoned film-palaces, built between 1910 and 1931. In most cities worldwide, such a concentration of cinemas would have been demolished long ago - here however the buildings have survived the end of film-projection intact, some of their interiors ruined and gutted, others transformed and re-used as churches, nightclubs and storage spaces. Stephen Barber's "Abandoned Images: Film and Film's End" begins with an exploration of these remarkable derelicts, and broadens to ask questions about the abandonment of film itself. Can cinema's distinctive aura survive when the specialized venues required to display it have been comprehensively overhauled, and even erased? In a time of increasing digitalization, are the processes and interactions of the cinematic experience losing their identity - is this the beginning of the end of film, as we know it? Through the course of the book Barber looks at the desertion of both film and cinematic spaces in order to determine what this reveals about the medium of film, and our culture as a whole. He argues that film is presently undergoing a process of profound transformation, and that the abandonment of film is a decisive process that intimates the casting aside of an obsolete, but nonetheless powerful, presence. He also forecasts the future of film, and shows how its distinctive and flexible nature will be vital to its survival. Featuring many evocative images, and containing numerous insightful reflections on the place of film and cinemas in our modern global culture, "Abandoned Images" will be of interest to all those engaged in contemporary developments in film, visual media and digital arts.