Cabinet 21 : electricity
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Electricity manifests itself in every facet of our lives--from the tiny shock received by touching a doorknob to the explosive power of a lightning strike, from the modest Hoover dustbuster to the industrial grandeur of the Hoover Dam. As a force that has given human beings seemingly unlimited power over nature and refashioned our understanding of day and night, and as a(...)
Cabinet 21 : electricity
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Electricity manifests itself in every facet of our lives--from the tiny shock received by touching a doorknob to the explosive power of a lightning strike, from the modest Hoover dustbuster to the industrial grandeur of the Hoover Dam. As a force that has given human beings seemingly unlimited power over nature and refashioned our understanding of day and night, and as a metaphor for the social currents flowing among individuals and communities, electricity has been our invisible yet ubiquitous ally in the creation of a contemporary "technological sublime." Cabinet No. 21 includes an interview with Sharon Beder on electricity and modernity in America; Margaret Wertheim on Lichtenberg figures, frozen lightning captured in acrylic blocks; Michael Sanchez on Francisco Salva's shocking proposal for an eighteenth-century human telegraphy system; an interview with Marcello Pera on how a frog triggered a decisive scientific debate between Enlightenment "electricians" Galvani and Volta; an essay on Benjamin Franklin's promotion of Ebenezer Kinnersley's electrified "magical picture"; and a firsthand account by a survivor of multiple lightning strikes. Also Tom Vanderbilt on Stasi scent samples; an interview with Sam Chwat, the foremost accent elimination coach in the United States; and artist projects by Andrea Geyer and Rachel Watson.
Magazines
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Our culture is dominated by the visual. Yet most writing on design reflects a narrow preoccupation with products, biographies, and design influences. Maud Lavin approaches design from the broader field of visual culture criticism, asking challenging questions about about who really has a voice in the culture and what unseen influences affect the look of things designers(...)
Graphic Design and Typography
October 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Clean new world : culture, politics, and graphic design
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Our culture is dominated by the visual. Yet most writing on design reflects a narrow preoccupation with products, biographies, and design influences. Maud Lavin approaches design from the broader field of visual culture criticism, asking challenging questions about about who really has a voice in the culture and what unseen influences affect the look of things designers produce. Lavin shows how design fits into larger questions of power, democracy, and communication. Many corporate clients instruct designers to convey order and clarity in order to give their companies the look of a clean new world. But since designers cannot clean up messy reality, Lavin shows, they often end up simply veiling it. Lacking the power to influence the content of their commercial work, many designers work simultaneously on other, more fulfilling projects. Lavin is especially interested in the graphic designer’s role in shaping cultural norms. She examines the anti-Nazi propaganda of John Heartfield, the modernist utopian design of Kurt Schwitters and the neue ring werbegestalter, the alternative images of women by studio ringl + pit, the activist work of such contemporary designers as Marlene McCarty and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and the Internet innovations of David Steuer and others. Throughout the book, Lavin asks how designers can expand the pleasure, democracy, and vitality of communication.
Graphic Design and Typography
books
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Our culture is dominated by the visual. Yet most writing on design reflects a narrow preoccupation with products, biographies, and design influences. Maud Lavin approaches design from the broader field of visual culture criticism, asking challenging questions(...)
Clean new world: culture, politics, and graphic design
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Our culture is dominated by the visual. Yet most writing on design reflects a narrow preoccupation with products, biographies, and design influences. Maud Lavin approaches design from the broader field of visual culture criticism, asking challenging questions about about who really has a voice in the culture and what unseen influences affect the look of things designers produce. Lavin shows how design fits into larger questions of power, democracy, and communication. Many corporate clients instruct designers to convey order and clarity in order to give their companies the look of a clean new world. But since designers cannot clean up messy reality, Lavin shows, they often end up simply veiling it. Lacking the power to influence the content of their commercial work, many designers work simultaneously on other, more fulfilling projects. Lavin is especially interested in the graphic designer’s role in shaping cultural norms. She examines the anti-Nazi propaganda of John Heartfield, the modernist utopian design of Kurt Schwitters and the neue ring werbegestalter, the alternative images of women by studio ringl + pit, the activist work of such contemporary designers as Marlene McCarty and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and the Internet innovations of David Steuer and others. Throughout the book, Lavin asks how designers can expand the pleasure, democracy, and vitality of communication.
books
March 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Graphic Design and Typography
Mad about painting
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Katsushika Hokusai was a revolutionary printmaker. His mastery of ukiyo-e in the nineteenth century has inspired generations of artists since, and his works helped introduce the world to the delicate beauty and power of the Japanese woodblock technique. In addition to his remarkable artistic output, Hokusai was also a dedicated teacher who sought to pass down his unique(...)
Mad about painting
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Katsushika Hokusai was a revolutionary printmaker. His mastery of ukiyo-e in the nineteenth century has inspired generations of artists since, and his works helped introduce the world to the delicate beauty and power of the Japanese woodblock technique. In addition to his remarkable artistic output, Hokusai was also a dedicated teacher who sought to pass down his unique understanding of color and painting to practicing artists through immensely detailed written tutorials and manuals, many of which are excerpted here, in English, for the first time.
Art Theory
The conductor
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Pairing two seemingly disparate elements—an orchestra conductor and a grove of trees—award-winning artist Laetitia Devernay herself orchestrates a visual magnum opus. Her spare, yet intricate, illustrations truly appear to take flight before our eyes and her wordless narrative nearly roars with sound as the conductor prompts the leaves to rustle, then whirl, then swirl to(...)
The conductor
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Pairing two seemingly disparate elements—an orchestra conductor and a grove of trees—award-winning artist Laetitia Devernay herself orchestrates a visual magnum opus. Her spare, yet intricate, illustrations truly appear to take flight before our eyes and her wordless narrative nearly roars with sound as the conductor prompts the leaves to rustle, then whirl, then swirl to unexpected life with each turn of the page. It is a celebration of creativity, imagination, storytelling, and the renewing power of nature that will entrance readers of every age.
Children's Books
The forge and the crucible
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Primitive man's discovery of the ability to change matter from one state to another brought about a profound change in spiritual behavior. In ''The Forge and the Crucible,'' Mircea Eliade follows the ritualistic adventures of these ancient societies, adventures rooted in the people's awareness of an awesome new power. The new edition of ''The Forge and the Crucible''(...)
The forge and the crucible
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Primitive man's discovery of the ability to change matter from one state to another brought about a profound change in spiritual behavior. In ''The Forge and the Crucible,'' Mircea Eliade follows the ritualistic adventures of these ancient societies, adventures rooted in the people's awareness of an awesome new power. The new edition of ''The Forge and the Crucible'' contains an updated appendix, in which Eliade lists works on Chinese alchemy published in the past few years. He also discusses the importance of alchemy in Newton's scientific evolution.
Current Exhibitions
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Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political discontent. From the earliest broadsheets in the 1500s to engravings, photolithographs, prints, posters, murals, graffiti, and political cartoons, these endlessly inventive graphic forms have symbolized and spurred on power struggles, rebellions, spirited(...)
October 2019
Protest! A history of social and political protest graphics
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Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political discontent. From the earliest broadsheets in the 1500s to engravings, photolithographs, prints, posters, murals, graffiti, and political cartoons, these endlessly inventive graphic forms have symbolized and spurred on power struggles, rebellions, spirited causes, and calls to arms. Spanning continents and centuries, "Protest!" presents a major new chronological look at protest graphics and shows how these images have been shaped by international events as well as advances in technology.
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Bringing together more than 200 objects produced over the past five centuries, this volume explores ornament in architecture, art, and design through the lens of drawing. In conjunction with the exhibition presented at the Drawing Center, this catalog seeks to address the multilayered complexity of the history of ornament, including the dissonance between the unequal and(...)
Drawing Papers 149: The clamor of ornament
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Bringing together more than 200 objects produced over the past five centuries, this volume explores ornament in architecture, art, and design through the lens of drawing. In conjunction with the exhibition presented at the Drawing Center, this catalog seeks to address the multilayered complexity of the history of ornament, including the dissonance between the unequal and destructive relationships that mediate its movement between sources, and its irrepressible power to express joy through motifs drawn from both the natural world and the minds of artists and designers.
Art Theory
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Christian Lutz continues his photographic study of power structures with Tropical Gift. He took portraits in Nigeria of people who live by and with the economic force that dominates everything there, the oil and gas industry. The photographs observe the protagonists' everyday lives and professional world from very close up, the rich profiteers in the capital and the(...)
Tropical gift: The business of oil and gas in Nigeria
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Christian Lutz continues his photographic study of power structures with Tropical Gift. He took portraits in Nigeria of people who live by and with the economic force that dominates everything there, the oil and gas industry. The photographs observe the protagonists' everyday lives and professional world from very close up, the rich profiteers in the capital and the indigenous population in the oil region, the Niger delta. The pictures tell their own story of business with these coveted raw materials subtly, but highly expressively.
Photography monographs
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As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh follows Sontag through the turbulent years of the 1960s—from her trip to Hanoi at the peak of the Vietnam War to her time making films in Sweden—up to 1981 and the beginning of the Reagan era. This is an invaluable record of the inner workings of one of the most inquisitive and analytical thinkers of the twentieth century at the(...)
As consciousness is harnessed to flesh: journals and notebooks, 1964-1980
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As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh follows Sontag through the turbulent years of the 1960s—from her trip to Hanoi at the peak of the Vietnam War to her time making films in Sweden—up to 1981 and the beginning of the Reagan era. This is an invaluable record of the inner workings of one of the most inquisitive and analytical thinkers of the twentieth century at the height of her power. It is also a remarkable document of one individual’s political and moral awakening.
Art Theory