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Pioneers in the Net Art movement, Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG) have erected fake architectural heritage signs, run media campaigns for non-existent action movies and even convinced the entire population of Vienna that Nike had purchased the city's historic Karlsplatz and was about to rename it Nikeplatz. This is the first book on their work. ... Read more

Product Description
In The Glass Bees the celebrated German writer Ernst Juenger presents a disconcerting vision of the future. Zapparoni, a brilliant businessman, has turned his advanced understanding of technology, and strategic command of the information and entertainment industries, into a discrete, and seemingly benign, form of global domination. But Zapparoni is worried that the scientists he depends on might take his secrets to a rival. He needs a chief of security, and Richard, a veteran and war hero who has fallen on hard times, is ready. But when Richard arrives at the beautiful country compound that is Zapparoni's headquarters, he finds himself subjected to an unexpected ordeal--one for which nothing he has ever known has prepared him. Soon he is led to question his past, his character, and even his senses. When The Glass Bees was first published in 1960, Juenger's German critics dismissed the book's vision of the future as without contemporary relevance. Today, however, that future seems something very much like the present we now know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A QUIETLY PERCEPTIVE NOVEL
I gather when this novel came out, it was widely dismissed as irrelevant. It was probably out of sync with the contemporary German political sensibility with political parties that assured everyone that they were democratic and centrist.Given Jungers political history, I suspect a lot of people weren't all that eager to hear his reflections on contemporary society.Part of the books power comes from the fact that while you can seeit as a withering critique of the shallowness of contemporary society ,it's calm and rather good natured.This is no Celine style screed.Mostly , Captain Richard tells you about himself and meditates on the way we live now.It is very German with a romantic fixation on authenticity and alienation.Yet it manages to be "light".That is the key to it's success.You are reading a philosophical novel of some real depth, yet you never feel your being hit over the head with poorly digested philosophy.Junger was an amazing man ( if you doubt that read STORM OF STEEL as well).It's apparent from this novel that he was also a remarkably subtle writer.

A Possible Vision of the Future
This is certainly a fascinating read. Junger's vision of the future feels possible, there is a world weariness about his character's views, ideas and memories. The narrator mourns the simpler world, the world in which the calvary charged into battle, when men fought a known enemy. The war of our modern age, as written about by Junger in this philosophical novel, is just a war of distances, pressing buttons, eliminating your opponent without seeing them.

The novel essentially takes place in a day. We follow the thoughts, memories, dreams of a man long discharged from the army, searching for employment in a world filled with robots and other inventions. The world is strongly amoral, these robots entertain, have replaced actors and become the world's source of entertainment. The soldier, through the help of a former colleague, has an interview with a brilliant businessman - a Bill Gates meets Warren Buffet-like character named Zapparoni. Richard, the war veteran is needed to be head of security. This Zapparoni fears his inventors will give away his secrets.

This is more a novel of ideas as opposed to situations. Richard recalls men he went to school with, former soldiers he knew and hung around with after the wars. He reflects on the past and the present. It is not plot-driven and much of the interview between the narrator and the business men happen between the memories and thoughts of Richard. It is a reflective novel, pensive, melancholic but hopeful in some sense.

If you enjoy the Orwell or Huxley, bear in mind this is not a story of scenes, there is no real plot other than a man going to an interview. It is more of a snapshot of a man's life in a possible future world. Considering Junger lived to the age of 102, and this novel was written in the '50s', one wonders what he thought about the world on his deathbed in the late 1990's.

Technology v. Humanity
A wonderful work by Junger.An interesting contrast to his On Pain.I see three basic themes running through the work.First is what Man is doing to himself through ever increasing technological improvements. Junger first points out the beauty of the accomplishments, but then emphasizes their sinister destructiveness.The second theme is that of how this has changed the very essence of mankind.The former cavalryman, imbued with honor and humaneness, becomes a mere mechanic with the advent of the tank and has little use in the new age.Finally, Junger seems to really emphasize the importance of our formative experiences in shaping our selves.Again and again, he comes back to the education given by the cavalry instructor to his young charges and this helps the protagonist through the puzzles set forth by Zapparoni.While not a science-fiction work, it does have hints of Philip K. Dick or the Asimov robot stories .Not the easiest of reads, but still accessible and relevant.Beautifully translated.

Prophetic
THE GLASS BEES is an interesting, even fascinating book. It isn't necessarily an easy one to read, but then again, Ernst Jünger isn't known for his light touch with a pen. Like a lot of German authors, he writes in the "romantisch-pathetisch" style that translates into English rather clumsily, and makes frequent, somewhat rambling digressions which often go on for many pages and challenge the reader's patience. Unlike many of his countrymen, however, he is also capable of writing outbursts of prose so beautifully put together they sound like poetry and remain stuck in the mind forevermore. For this reason, and for his keen observations on life and the human condition, I am always willing to wade into Jünger's works, even when I know it will be heavy going.

THE GLASS BEES is something of a prophetic book, straddling the line between science-fiction and alternate history. Written in the mid-1950s, it foretold many aspects of modern life, most notably the rise of super-corporations led by brilliant but morally ambiguous men, the life-changing effects of technology, and the shift in moral climate that come about as a result of these things. The protagonist, Richards, is an ex-officer looking for work in a postwar economy that views him as something of an anachronism. Instilled with the classic military virtues, but lacking the ruthlessness and unscrupulousness which seems to define the modern man, Richards is practically starving when an old comrade sets up with a job interview with Zapparoni, a sort of cross between Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Walt Dinsney. Zapparoni is the brain of a corporate empire whose artificially intelligent, labor-saving machines have revolutionized both everyday life and the concept of entertainment, and his public image is of a charitable, child-loving, benificent old man. Richards, however, has heard more ominous things about Zapparoni: to wit, that he is really a monomaniacal control freak who crushes his corporate rivals into paste and terrorizes his own employees into slavelike obedience, "disappearing" anyone who becomes inconvenient. Richards, however, is desperate to provide for his beloved wife and marches grimly into Zapparoni's compound, reflecting as he tours the facilities on the tectonic changes in society which have occurred in his lifetime. Between audiences with the coldly enigmatic titan, Richards makes a number of jarring discoveries , not the least of which is that he cannot outrun the values instilled in him by his military academy training. The question then becomes twofold: will he leave the compound alive after what he has discovered, and if he does, can he find a place in a world where profit-motive, amorality and lust for power have replaced duty, honor and tradition?

THE GLASS BEES is undoubtedly a strange book, and it is arguable that if Jünger's prose style were less digressive and turgid his observations and questions would have been clearer and easier to understand. However, this does not change the fact that those observations and questions, penned fifty years ago, are not only relevant in today's world but actually crucial. The increasing power of corporations, ominous as that may be, is nothing compared to the way their "values" of Machiavellianism, greed and amorality have become the values of countless millions of people. On the other hand, the desire of scientists to play god just for the sake of it, which Jünger alludes to by showing us Zapparoni's mechanical bees, is not merely a warning about the threat technology poses to the ordinary man (who increasingly finds himself redundant in the workplace) but of the dangers of doing things simply because they can be done, without ever stopping to ask if they should be.

Interesting Prophecy
Ernst Junger died at the age of 102 in 1997. However interest in The Glass Bees (originally published in 1957) is more a credit to the book's prescience than its extraordinarily long-lived author. In the novel, the head of a multinational animation studio develops a new variety of movies using lifelike automatons indistinguishable from real actors. The glass bees of the title are his newest gizmos, as small as bees yet outperforming what they mimic, recreating and specializing themselves until their evolution races past their creators' control. More a meditation than a novel, this work airs the views of its narrator, a former cavalry officer obsessed with the ravages of modernity, specifically the way it makes our lives easier and more unpleasant. More ease, the old soldier says, has made us more prone to complain instead of less. While it's impossible to outline all the ideas in the officer's heady ruminations, they have a common theme: he was better off when his work was real. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Not Free SF Reader
There are two main political factions in the masses of humanity that
have spread to the stars. The Shapers, and the Mechanists. These
factions have two different schools of thought on posthuman alteration
of the body, the former organic, the latter taking the cyborg route.
They are not the only organisations that exist, but are the most
influential.

This is good old-fashioned "hard science fiction"
I sometimes wonder whatever happened to good old-fashioned science fiction, the traditional type stuff of Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov.Seems the old sci-fi has diversified into so many subgenres now I can't locate the good stuff.But you could hardly ask for a better sampling of traditional space adventure than this.

And overall, much like other famous space adventure novels, the vast scope and plot of "Schismatrix" serves at least somewhat as a metaphor for our own present day world.It's the story of a society divided, and a series of covert wars among the different schisms, and the life of one lone maverick who tries to stand clear of all of them and find prosperity and greatness separate and apart.

As an aside, I think the genre Bruce has been identified with, "cy6erpunk," is more ephemeral than most fashionable genres, and is often just a trendy buzzword.There is little or nothing in this novel to identify as cyberpunk but plenty to describe it as traditional science fiction much like Asimov or Roddenberry would write.If Bruce ever wrote cyberpunk this wasn't it IMO.

Bruce is a high-energy writer who is well-known for his short stories.In fact, a few of them took place in this same Schismatrix universe, and were later included I think in the "Schismatrix Plus" collection.One of my very favorite shorts of his is one of these and can be found also in the collection "Crystal Express."

I found this to be a pretty easy read, and like much traditional science fiction, is not extremely emotional stuff, but focuses much on science and technology.It is not without some emotional depth, but anyway is focused on the loner protagonist, who is in fact pretty alien in his ways compared to us.I think Bruce empathized with him to some extent though.

I'd say if you like sf and want a good intro to Bruce, this is a great way to go.But I'd suggest the "Schismatrix Plus" instead, because the shorts included there, while not essential to this plot, are great reading also, and help fill out this universe a tiny bit.And besides, if you are some science-fiction-readin' weirdo like me, you will finish this book in a heartbeat and be ready for more.

Pronounced Schiz-mat-rics, With A Short a, 2-1/2 Stars
I really wanted to like this novel. It had a clever name, an amalgamation of the Great Schism that separate Catholicism and Protestantism, and Matrix, like the movie with the same title. (Note: the novel is pronounced Shiz-mat-rix, with a short a, rhymes with schematics). A classic cyberpunk title. However, this novel is anything but user-friendly. I don't know if pharmaceuticals are needed for appreciating this novel, or if the author used them when frantically writing, in between vacuuming the roof of his house and such. The novel moves at such a frantic pace that within one sentence the entire setting can change and this happens more than a few times. It's difficult to know the point of the plot; perhaps that life is worth living. The novel is a cross between Heinlein's Time Enough For Love, Bester's The Stars My Destination, and petting a sea urchin.

In case you've also seen a book titled Schismatrix Plus and was wondering what that was, note that it's not a sequel.Instead it's the novel Schismatrix and his related Mechanist-Shaper short stories. The short stories are interesting and enjoyable. In fact Sterling seems to excel with his short stories. His story "Flowers of Edo" is where I got interested in his style. I would recommend his short stories, but this novel is another matter.

Humanity has balkanized into a number of factions, with the Shapers and Mechanists being the most powerful. The Shapers have reshaped their bodies genetically. This includes such drastic things as replacing all the E. Coli in their intestines with enzymes. The Mechanists are like the Borg of Star Trek, they use mechanical prosthetics to enhance themselves. If you think the Mechanists are the cleaner of the two, think again. Cockroaches and bacteria are prevalent in Mechanist environments. Every five years the Mechanists need to have the bacterial growth scraped and UV-burned off their skin. That's one thing prevalent throughout his writings, this sort of creepiness. Expect more of it.

However, don't let the war make you think this is some majestic good vs. evil epic space war. Battles are mostly low key. There is lot's of narration and dialog. Sterling self-claims his crammed prose. No kidding. Adjectives rule supreme in this novel; as many as possible are crammed into each sentence. If one would do a histogram of adjectives, this novel would be on the far right tail of the bell curve. Here's an excerpt: " He always wore his spacesuit, [something something], and [multiple length modifiers] body odor came through its [multiple adjectives] collar with [multiple adjectives] pungency." Sentences like this go on and on and on and on and on and on and on throughout the novel. And there's no shortage of hyphenated words, like long-fermented, eye-watering. On one page, there were no less than 11 hyphenated words, plus one triple one.

Similar to the prosthetics of the Borg, the sentences themselves seem interchangeable. Here's another excerpt of a dialogue:
"What was your brigade?
I'm no Cataclyst.
I have your weapon here.
Constantine pulled a ... vial from his ... jacket ..."
You may as well interchange your own sentences: `The tree fell in the forest; it made no sound' or `the space ship went into orbit; it's boots were muddy.' Give it a try. It'll make as much sense.

There are times when the novel seems profound. I would find myself backtracking at times to understand some point, and I would go back 5, then 10, then 20 pages to try to understand something and would just give up and go back to where I was. It's hard to say you read this novel, it's more like your eyes glance over the words, and on occasion you absorb some of it. Since the novel fluctuates from the profound to the mundane an average of 2-1/2 stars seemed appropriate.

Prophetic
I've read this novel 4 times, which beats Dune and The Silmarillion by one.

This is easily one of the most richly imagined futures ever conceived.

As far as it being "inacessible":go read one of those awful Dune prequels if you want to be spoon-fed your predigested pap.Come back when you grow up...

Not Sterling Silver
This is one fascinating but frustrating novel. The Sterling sociology lesson is in full swing, but between the many treatises there is a sort of plot about a solar system torn in two by the genetically altered (Shapers) and the technically life-enhanced ("Mechanists"). They wage a political war and perform dirty deeds for the entire length of the book, meeting an alien race along the way. The main character, Abelard Malcolm Tyler Lindsey, survives the ages and finally just drifts off as an entity (a la Dave Bowman). There is a fascination to this novel--there are beautiful passages and interesting ideas, but this is hard-core Sterling and not at all an easy read.
... Read more

Product Description
Rirkrit Tiravanija thrives on the interactions between himself and strangers, friends new and old that he encounters on his travels. He insists that art should provide an occasion for geniality and sociability, an insistence that has enriched the environments he has traversed. Conceived as an artist's book, Rirkrit Tiravanija is also the artist's first monograph. It is constructed as a "storyboard" comprised of images from every work produced between 1989 and the present day. In collaboration with the great Paris designers M/M, Tiravanija offers us the most complete evaluation of his work to date, using as narrative backbone his numerous international retrospective exhibitions of 2004 and 2005 (at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum in Thailand, the Munich Kunstverein, the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Musee d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Serpentine Gallery in London). As documentation, this book is an unsurpassed survey that demonstrates the conceptual unity of Tiravanija's seemingly disparate projects. Texts include written scenarios and scripts by the artist Philippe Parreno, the science fiction writer Bruce Sterling and by Tiravanija himself. Also included is a post-retrospective conversation between the exhibitions' curators, among them Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Born in 1961 in Buenos Aires (Argentina) Rirkrit Tiravanija lives and works in New York, Berlin and Bangkok. ... Read more

Product Description
Considered one of the most promising science fiction writers, Cory Doctorow's name is already mentioned with such SF greats as J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. He was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer at the 2000 Hugo Awards. Cory's singular tales push the boundaries of the genre, exploring pop culture, trash, nerd pride, and the nexus of technology and social change. His work is a roadmap to the possible futures that may arise in our lifetimes. Additional stories include "Craphound", "All Day Sucker", "Shadow of the Mothaship", "The Superman and the Bugout", "Home Again, Home Again", and "Return to the Pleasure Island".Amazon.com Review
Wunderkind Cory Doctrow continues to display his orientation skills at the intersection of Humanity and Technology with the collection of short stories A Place So Foreign and 8 More. In the collection's titular tale, "A Place So Foreign," a 19th-century boy travels with his father, the Ambassador to 1975. But when Pa meets with an accident, young James becomes a living anachronism in 1898. Doctrow twists the time travel tale into a parable of data mining, as mysterious forces work to plunder the past for corporate gain. In one of several stories about a mysterious alien race who offers to give Earthers a hand up, he documents the adolescent rage of those left behind when the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world. Finally, in "0wnz0red", Doctrow explores the dark side of Silicon Valley's connection to the military industrial complex by posing the question: What happens when hackers learn to hack the human body?

Doctrow is a new breed in an increasingly literate and valid subgenre of science fiction. He uses the traditional allegories of the form to explore more human and fragile connections. As the 21st century rockets ahead, he examines the consequences of our frenzy to embrace technology and predicts outcomes that are both charmingly optimistic and bleakly hollow. --Jeremy Pugh ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Great but for a bit of a "bugout"
After reading one of Doctorow's short stories in another collection, I was intrigued enough to follow up with an entire collection of his and was not disappointed.The stories - for the most part - are all very engaging, funny and draw the reader in, even when the ideas, concepts and sometime technologies that Doctorow has created are a shade on the complex side.

I will say that I was less enamored of the "bugout" stories (of which there are three) mostly because of how little of the world is documented, making it very difficult to understand some of the motivations of the characters described.

All in all a very good collection.

Imaginative stories that defy easy classification
The nine stories contained in _A Place So Foreign_ can only be easily classified together as "imaginative" - any other grouping fails to do them justice. From the cyberpunk (or "Nerdc0re" as the author describes it) story "0wnz0red," the alien buddy story "Craphound," the time-travelling caper "A Place so Foreign," and the dark fantasy "Return to Pleasure Island," the author shows that he can be creative and interesting in many different areas of fiction. "All Day Sucker" and "The Re-Branding of Billy Bailey" represent commentaries on aspects of society, and the three "bugout" stories ("Shadow of the Mothaship," "Home Again, Home Again," and "The Super Man and the Bugout") are also included.

If you're interested in reading imaginative science fiction, then this is the anthology for you. It is one of the most interesting works I've read in years.

The genre at its best
As a co-editor of Boing Boing, former director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, USC professor and anti-DRM activist (to scratch the surface) Mr. Doctorow has his bone fides when it comes to understanding how technology is changing the world.
His writing follows in the tradition of the best of science fiction as a poigniant fun house mirror held up to our own time.No busty women in skintight space suits or ridiculously biceped rogues fighting off alien overlords.If you are looking for stories about them, look elsewhere.If you're looking for stories about people dealing with normal problems in extraordinary (but plausible) circumstance, you'll feel right at home here.

From before he was down and out in the Magic Kingdom
Doctorow (no provable relation to E. L., by the way) made his first big splash with his off-the-wall short stories -- especially the last one in this collection, "Ownz0red," which is a Leet Geek work of narrative art about taking copyright commons to the next level, by way of the personal biosphere. "Craphound," on the other hand, while it's a well-written and entertaining story about junk-hawks, is almost the sort of thing you might have found in the old Analog. "To Market, to Market: The Rebranding of Billy Bailey," has a strong Gibsonian flavor and is probably the second-best thing in this collection. The title story is a not entirely successful time travel yarn that seems to lose its way at several points. "Return to Pleasure Island" is just strange, and also not enitrely successful. The remaining three stories are sort of a set, sharing a future in which the aliens have come and are shaping us up whether we like it or not, but none of the three shares characters. This is the best single-author collection I've read in several years.

Doctorow's first collection, and it's a nice one
_____________________________________________

This is newish writer Doctorow's first collection, and it's a nice one. You can easily judge this for yourself, as he's put up six of the nine stories in the book for free download, along with Bruce Sterling's perceptive intro, athttp://craphound.com/place/

Still, I'm supposed to provide guidance here, right? OK: the newest and hottest story here is "0wnz0red"....
But why listen to me? Here's Chairman Bruce Sterling's opinion:

[quote]There has been a chunk of science fiction influenced by Silicon Valley, but "0wnz0red" captures the disturbed inner world of the technically sociopathic... This story is fully realized, and it is sarcastic, abrasive, and mind-boggling in a truly novel way. Like Beat writing in its early period, "0wnz0red" has the dual virtues of being both really offensive and genuinely hard for normal people to understand. This work is therefore truly advanced.[end quote]

Well, um, AOL. "If your nerd quotient is high enough, ["0wnz0red"] will blow you away" -- Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder.

My favorite Doctorow story so far, the gonzo "Jury Service", isn't here, maybe because it's a collab with Charlie Stross? --but it's just a click away: [OK, a few clicks, since Ammy usuallybounces URLS-- g00gle scifi[dot]com]

[quote] Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.

Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun. Except for the solitary lighthouse beam that perpetually tracks the Earth in its orbit, the system from outside resembles a spherical fogbank radiating in the infrared spectrum; a matrioshka brain, nested Dyson orbitals built from the dismantled bones of moons and planets...[end quote]

Absolutely not to be missed. See my (and others) comments on "Jury Service" atg00gle groups.

OK, back to what *is* in the book. "Craphound", the leadoff story, was Doctorow's first published story, about an alien who likes thrift shops. Good weird stuff, and online, too.

"A Place So Foreign", an 18,000 word novella (also online) about time-travel from 1898 to 1975, is a fresh take on an old theme, and well-worth reading, though not quite to my taste.

"All Day Sucker" is a neat, clever short-short original. "To Market, To Market: The Rebranding of Billy Bailey", personal brand-management at Pepsi Elementary, is crackerjack, my second-favorite in the collection (and overall). Neither is online.

"Return to Pleasure Island" is sort of a Disney satire and didn't do much for me. And "Shadow of the Mothaship", a weird scientology/alien invasion tale, went completely by me, though it's a favorite of the author. Go figure. Both are online, so you can judge for yourself (and calibrate your taste against mine). "Home Again, Home Again", an alien nuthouse tale, and "The Super Man and the Bugout", adventures of a Jewish-Canadian superhero, are good stories that share the "Mothaship" background. Both are online.

So that's it. A good collection, from a hot new writer--but they left out two of his four strongest stories!

Review first published at SF Site
Copyright © 2004 Peter D. Tillman

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Product Description
This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Schismatrix, Islands in the Net, the Difference Engine, the Zenith Angle, Holy Fire, the Caryatids, Heavy Weather, the Artificial Kid. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Schismatrix (pronounced ) is a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, originally published in 1985. The story was Sterling's only novel-length treatment of the Shaper/Mechanist universe. Five short stories preceded the novel. Schismatrix was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1985, and the British Science Fiction Award in 1986. The main character, Abélard Lindsay, is born in the ancient lunar colony Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic, into a family of aristocratic Mechanists, but after being sent to the Shapers Ring Council, he receives specialized and experimental diplomatic training and gives his loyalty to the Shapers' cause. He, his best friend and fellow Shaper protege Philip Constantine and the beautiful and passionate Preservationist Vera Kelland lead an insurgency against the rulers of the republic, who use Mechanist technology to prolong their lives. The three of them influence the younger generation towards the Shapers' cause in their pursuit of Preservationism, a movement devoted to the preservation of earth-bound human culture. Kelland and Lindsay agree to kill themselves as a political statement, but Lindsay reneges on his suicide pact after Kelland is dead. Constantine attempts to kill Lindsay but instead kills a Mechanist, creating a scandal. Constantine is allowed to remain in the Republic because his knowledge is needed to keep the Republic's environment from self-destructing but Lindsay is exiled to the Mare Tranquilitatis Circumlunar People's Zaibatsu. This lunar colony, which collapsed due to an environ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1092478 ... Read more

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Piet Mondrian once wrote that "Life is basically simple. It may grow more and more complex, but it need not lose this simplicity. Complexity needs to be perfected, simplicity is man's perfect state." This statement encapsulates the values that would come to inform twentieth-century modernism. But it was not just the era's art that exalted purity--the same logic was at work in agriculture, urban planning and population control. This publication explores how the desire for "the pure" ultimately manifested as an economic process, advocating a need for technology to become an agent for the impure and the imperfect. ... Read more

Product Description
There are few outside a circle of initiates who realize just how important Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) are for international architecture today. Arguably, Koolhaas/OMA is the most interesting architect from the latter half of the 20th century. But how well is this truly understood? Certainly in the Netherlands, OMA is known only for the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. The average culture buff--who sees architecture from a layman's point of view--often only has two criteria when looking at architecture: it has to look good and it has to serve a purpose. Regrettably this section of the public considers the Kunsthal to be a failure on both counts and so is blind to the significance of Rem Koolhaas and OMA. In New York, Koolhaas's Prada store is perhaps equally elusive: it looks unlike any other store and it behaves unlike any other store.~What is OMA maps the fields where Koolhaas is active, not only showing his realized buildings but illuminating his perspective on the contemporary city and urbanity. The book describes with great clarity Koolhaas's role in architectural theory and the body of concepts wielded by him. Authors of international repute from beyond the province of architecture examine Koolhaas's work in the light of social and economic developments. As a result, What is OMA paints an intelligent picture of the sheer range of Rem Koolhaas's architecture and its seminal role in the architectural world. It is the first book to approach Koolhaas's work from the vantage point of disciplines other than architecture and to explain it to the general public....a living master...~--Herbert Muschamp~...a prophet of a new modern architecture...~--Thomas J. Pritzker

Edited by Veronique Patteeuw.~Essays by Aaron Betsky, Okwui Enwezor, Neal Leach, Matthew Stadler, Bart Verschaffel, H.J.A. Hofland and Bruce Sterling.~Excerpts by Michael Sorkin, Jean Attali, Anthony Vidler, Fredric Jameson, et al.

Paperback, 6.5 x 8.75 in./168 pgs / 48 color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Cliff Notes on OMA
"What is OMA?" - a collection of writings by varied individuals about Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture - unfortunately amounts to Cliff Notes about the said architect and his design firm.

Admittedly,when I bought "What is OMA?" I thought that the book would be an interesting discussion about the work and theories of Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. The writings either provide glossy insights into individuals' reactions to Rem/OMA or summarize his past writings relative to a current context.

Interest in the Cliff Notes erodes with each consequent writing in a Baudrillardian fashion as the pieces rediscusses theories highlighted in Rem's "S,M,L,XL" and "Delirious New York".

If one is looking for how other individuals look at Rem Koolhaas and OMA, "What is OMA?" may be for you. However, if you want to experience/read Rem Koolhaas and OMA at their best continue to reference books such as "S,M,L,XL" and "Delirious New York".

An enigma
This book is a compilation of essays by a few professionals from different perspectives in considering Rem Koolhaas and his offsprings in the form of OMA and AMO.Some essays are cerebral and filled with so many architectural jargons that towards the end, I said to myself, what the ..?However, some essays had wonderful proses and informative at the same time.I didn't know for a start that Rem was a movie director, script writer, and I also didn't know that he stayed for few years in Asia and his fascination with those Asian countries.Furthermore, there were description of his earlier works which are now having cult following.Anyhow, this book is essentially used to accompany Rem's exhibition.There were also notable essays about his interpretation of Lagos, Nigeria; Rem's perspective of large buildings; Rem's compulsion in doing statistical research to compile those data into useful information which eventually would be used to build buildings to faciliate those information (fulfilling briefs) instead of building 'junk space' and so forth.Ultimately, Rem is someone that defies conventions.He doesn't necessarily build beautiful buildings.Afterall, what is defined as beautiful these days?He is someone that polarises opinion.Either you like him or you hate him.In the end, can Rem be called an enigma?Whilst this book is not for everybody, it is still worth reading to get a feel of what Rem Koolhaas is all about.Be sure to read Rem's own works.Commendable effort. ... Read more

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Chapters: Neal Stephenson, Dave Winer, Lawrence Lessig, William Gibson, Bill Joy, Bruce Sterling, John Perry Barlow, Douglas Coupland, Stewart Brand, Jaron Lanier, Cory Doctorow, George Gilder, Paul Levinson, J. Bradford Delong, Simson Garfinkel, Esther Dyson, Joshua Davis, Nicholas Negroponte, Kevin Kelly, Rudy Rucker, Charles Platt, Howard Rheingold, Chris Anderson, Charlie Jackson, Louis Rossetto, Wil Mccarthy, Peter Schwartz, Declan Mccullagh, Po Bronson, Mark Frauenfelder, Steven Berlin Johnson, Steven Levy, Quinn Norton, Richard Kadrey, Paul Saffo, James Daly, Regina Lynn, Paul Boutin, John Battelle, Gareth Branwyn, Jane Metcalfe, Gary Wolf, Patrick Di Justo, Spencer Reiss, Jules Marshall. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 238. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome" and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. He is also credited with predicting the rise of reality television and with establishing the conceptual foundations for the rapid growth of virtual environments such as video games and the Web. Having changed residence frequently with his family as a child, Gibson became a shy, ungainly teenager who often read science fiction. After spending his adolescence at a private boarding school in Arizona, Gibson dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by emigrating to Canada in 1968, where he became immersed in the counterculture and after settling in Vancouver eventually became a full-time writer. He re...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=33119 ... Read more

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Chapters: Wired Essays, Wired Magazine People, Neal Stephenson, Dave Winer, Lawrence Lessig, William Gibson, Bill Joy, Bruce Sterling, John Perry Barlow, Douglas Coupland, Stewart Brand, Disneyland With the Death Penalty, Jaron Lanier, Cory Doctorow, George Gilder, Paul Levinson, J. Bradford Delong, Simson Garfinkel, Esther Dyson, Joshua Davis, Nicholas Negroponte, Kevin Kelly, Rudy Rucker, Charles Platt, Howard Rheingold, Chris Anderson, Charlie Jackson, Louis Rossetto, Wil Mccarthy, Peter Schwartz, Declan Mccullagh, Po Bronson, Mark Frauenfelder, Steven Berlin Johnson, Steven Levy, Quinn Norton, Richard Kadrey, Paul Saffo, James Daly, Regina Lynn, Paul Boutin, John Battelle, Gareth Branwyn, Smiley's People, Jane Metcalfe, Gary Wolf, Patrick Di Justo, Global Neighborhood Watch, Wired Smart List, Spencer Reiss, Jules Marshall. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 255. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome" and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. He is also credited with predicting the rise of reality television and with establishing the conceptual foundations for the rapid growth of virtual environments such as video games and the Web. Having changed residence frequently with his family as a child, Gibson became a shy, ungainly teenager who often read science fiction. After spending his adolescence at a private boarding school in Arizona, Gibson dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by emigrating to Cana...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=33119 ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! MichaelBruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is anAmerican science fiction author, best known for hisnovels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology,which helped define the cyberpunkgenre.Sterlingis, along with William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, JohnShirley, Lewis Shiner, and Pat Cadigan, one of thefounders of the cyberpunk movement in sciencefiction, as well as its chief ideologicalpromulgator, and one whose polemicson the topicearned him the nickname "Chairman Bruce".He wasalso one of the first organizers of the Turkey CityWriter's Workshop, and is a frequent attendee at theSycamore Hill Writer's Workshop. He won Hugo Awardsfor his novelettes Bicycle Repairman and Taklamakan. ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Novels by Bruce Sterling, Short Stories by Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix, Islands in the Net, the Difference Engine, Red Star, Winter Orbit, the Zenith Angle, Holy Fire, the Caryatids, Heavy Weather, the Artificial Kid, Bicycle Repairman, Taklamakan. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Schismatrix (pronounced ) is a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, originally published in 1985. The story was Sterling's only novel-length treatment of the Shaper/Mechanist universe. Five short stories preceded the novel. Schismatrix was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1985, and the British Science Fiction Award in 1986. The main character, Abélard Lindsay, is born in the ancient lunar colony Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic, into a family of aristocratic Mechanists, but after being sent to the Shapers Ring Council, he receives specialized and experimental diplomatic training and gives his loyalty to the Shapers' cause. He, his best friend and fellow Shaper protege Philip Constantine and the beautiful and passionate Preservationist Vera Kelland lead an insurgency against the rulers of the republic, who use Mechanist technology to prolong their lives. The three of them influence the younger generation towards the Shapers' cause in their pursuit of Preservationism, a movement devoted to the preservation of earth-bound human culture. Kelland and Lindsay agree to kill themselves as a political statement, but Lindsay reneges on his suicide pact after Kelland is dead. Constantine attempts to kill Lindsay but instead kills a Mechanist, creating a scandal. Constantine is allowed to remain in the Republic because his knowledge is needed to keep the Republic's environment from self-destructing but Lindsay is exi...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1092478 ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Artforum International, published by Artforum International Magazine, Inc. on October 1, 2009. The length of the article is 2581 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Don't look back: Bruce Sterling on F. T. Marinetti.(FUTURISM)(Biography)
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publication: Artforum International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2009
Publisher: Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 48Issue: 2Page: 113(3)

Article Type: Biography

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Chapters: Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Cory Doctorow, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker, Charles Stross, Lewis Shiner, Fran Ilich, Richard Kadrey, Earl S. Wynn, Bruce Bethke, Tom Maddox, Lisa Mason. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 99. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome" and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. He is also credited with predicting the rise of reality television and with establishing the conceptual foundations for the rapid growth of virtual environments such as video games and the Web. Having changed residence frequently with his family as a child, Gibson became a shy, ungainly teenager who often read science fiction. After spending his adolescence at a private boarding school in Arizona, Gibson dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by emigrating to Canada in 1968, where he became immersed in the counterculture and after settling in Vancouver eventually became a full-time writer. He retains dual citizenship. Gibson's early works are bleak, noir near-future stories about the effect of cybernetics and computer networks on humans a "combination of lowlife and high tech". The short stories were published in popular science fiction magazines. The themes, settings and characters developed in these stories culminated in his first novel, Neuromancer, which garnered critical and commercial success, virtually initiating the cyberpunk literary genre. Although much of G...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=33119 ... Read more

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Chapters: Robert E. Howard, Bruce Sterling, Ben K. Green, Kinky Friedman, Gene Wolfe, Howard Waldrop, Joe R. Lansdale, Molly Ivins, Thomas C. Lea, Iii, Hedwig Gorski, Bud Shrake, Jenna Hager, Gary Taylor, Christopher Largen, Horton Foote, Eustace Mullins, Frank Buck, Rachel Caine, Allison Hedge Coke, Whitley Strieber, Jp Miller, Katherine Anne Porter, Raymond Benson, Elmer Kelton, Larry Mcmurtry, John Gray, Bill Keith, Paco Ahlgren, J. Frank Dobie, Judith Mcnaught, Jesse Sublett, Carroll Pickett, Woodrow Landfair, P. N. Elrod, Shanna Swendson, Linda Ellerbee, Gordon Baxter, Jim Marrs, Steven Long, William Broyles, Jr., Rick Klaw, B. H. Fairchild, Jodi Thomas, Allen Drury, Philipp Meyer, Brett Halliday, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Lon Tinkle, William O'neil, Garland Roark, Sandra Brown, Beth Moore, Ramsay Wood, John Henry Faulk, John Demartini, Walter H. Breen, Roger Birkman, Dr. Moe Anderson, Charles Harper Webb, Jennifer Archer, Candace Camp, Tom Sleigh, Aaron Allston, Katherine Sutcliffe, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Linda Warren, Charles L. Harness, Robert Flynn, Roy Bedichek, Bill Crider, Larry D. Thomas, Steven Utley, Walter Prescott Webb, Hector Cantú, James Lee Burke, Merlyn Mantle, Thax Douglas, Matt Clark, Henry C. Dethloff, Susan Wittig Albert, James Hynes, Jacqueline Kolosov, Scott A. Johnson, Terry Spear, John Thomason, Karen Ranney, Eric Miles Williamson, Scott Westerfeld, Lane Crockett, Catherine Bowman, Ernest Cline, Kai Starr, Dorothy Scarborough, Harvey Schmidt, David L. Lindsey, Barbara Ras, Brian Floca, George Sessions Perry, Tom Jones, Sergio Troncoso, Sarah Bird, Duane Simolke, Joe M. O'connell, Joanna Wayne, Fred Gipson, Christian Wiman, William Wenthe, Robert Sterling Arnold, Bethany Kennedy Scanlon, Roy H. Williams, Ellis Amburn, Diane Fanning, Timothy Braun, Bret Anthony Johnston, Ardath Mayhar, Mechelle Avey, Frank X. Tolbert, Ron Rozelle, Michael Simms, Lisa Tuttle, Timothy Huskey, J. Lanier Yeates, Neal Barret...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=26078 ... Read more

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Der Erwerb des Buches enthält gleichzeitig die kostenlose Mitgliedschaft im Buchklub des Verlags zum Ausprobieren - dort können Sie von über einer Million Bücher ohne weitere Kosten auswählen. Das Buch besteht aus Wikipedia-Artikeln: Slavoj Žižek, David Lynch, Margarethe von Trotta, Chantal Akerman, Peter Greenaway, Bruce Sterling, Michel Houellebecq, Catherine Breillat, Claude Lanzmann, Donna Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Paul Virilio, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard, Atom Egoyan, Volker Schlöndorff, Sylvère Lotringer, Friedrich Kittler, Gaspar Noé, Jacques Rancière, DJ Spooky, Durs Grünbein, Nicholson Baker, Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, Wolfgang Schirmacher, Heiner Goebbels, Lewis Baltz, Siegfried Zielinski, Jürgen Kriz, Agnès Varda, Geert Lovink, Simon McBurney, Werner Hamacher, Krzysztof Zanussi, Lew Manowitsch, Michael Hardt, Hélène Cixous, Antony Gormley, John Waters, Tracey Emin, Samuel Weber, Brothers Quay, Hubertus von Amelunxen, Victor Burgin, Colum McCann, Claire Denis, Christian Marclay, Elia Suleiman, Michael Schmidt, Avital Ronell, Manuel de Landa, Tom Kalin, Barbara Hammer, Pierre Aubenque, John Perry Barlow,. Online finden Sie die kostenlose Aktualisierung der Bücher. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Jacques Derrida (* 15. Juli 1930 in El Biar, Algerien; † 8. Oktober 2004 in Paris, Frankreich) war ein französischer Philosoph, der als Begründer und Hauptvertreter der Dekonstruktion gilt. Er lehrte als Professor am Collège international de philosophie in Paris und an der European Graduate School in Saas-Fee. Sein Werk beeinflusste maßgeblich die Philosophie und Literaturwissenschaft, zu seinen Hauptwerken zählen Grammatologie 1967, Die Schrift und die Differenz 1967 und Randgänge der Philosophie 1972. 1942 wurde Derrida als Sohn einer jüdischen Familie entsprechend einer Verordnung des Vichy-Regimes der Schulbesuch untersagt (die Quote für jüdische Schüler wurde von 14 auf 7 Prozent gesenkt). Die antisemit...http://booksllc.net/?l=de&id=71066 ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Artforum International, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 2443 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Hot trends: Bruce Sterling on global warming in the glossies.(fashion magazines and environmentalism)
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publication: Artforum International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 44Issue: 10Page: 145(3)

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Word count: 2141. ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Writers From Texas, Robert E. Howard, Bruce Sterling, Ben K. Green, Kinky Friedman, Gene Wolfe, Howard Waldrop, Caballero: a Historical Novel, Joe R. Lansdale, Molly Ivins, Thomas C. Lea, Iii, Lonesome Dove, Hedwig Gorski, Bud Shrake, Jenna Hager, Gary Taylor, Christopher Largen, Horton Foote, Eustace Mullins, Frank Buck, Rachel Caine, Allison Hedge Coke, Whitley Strieber, Jp Miller, Katherine Anne Porter, Raymond Benson, Elmer Kelton, Larry Mcmurtry, John Gray, Bill Keith, Paco Ahlgren, J. Frank Dobie, Judith Mcnaught, Jesse Sublett, Carroll Pickett, Woodrow Landfair, P. N. Elrod, Streets of Laredo, Shanna Swendson, Linda Ellerbee, Gordon Baxter, Jim Marrs, Steven Long, William Broyles, Jr., Rick Klaw, B. H. Fairchild, Jodi Thomas, Allen Drury, Philipp Meyer, Brett Halliday, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Lon Tinkle, William O'neil, Garland Roark, Sandra Brown, Beth Moore, Comanche Moon, Ramsay Wood, John Henry Faulk, John Demartini, Walter H. Breen, Roger Birkman, Dr. Moe Anderson, Dead Man's Walk, Charles Harper Webb, Jennifer Archer, Candace Camp, Tom Sleigh, Aaron Allston, Katherine Sutcliffe, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Linda Warren, Charles L. Harness, Robert Flynn, Roy Bedichek, Bill Crider, Larry D. Thomas, Steven Utley, Walter Prescott Webb, Hector Cantú, James Lee Burke, Merlyn Mantle, Thax Douglas, Matt Clark, Henry C. Dethloff, Susan Wittig Albert, James Hynes, Jacqueline Kolosov, Scott A. Johnson, Terry Spear, Texas Literature, John Thomason, Karen Ranney, Eric Miles Williamson, Scott Westerfeld, Lane Crockett, Catherine Bowman, Ernest Cline, Kai Starr, Dorothy Scarborough, Harvey Schmidt, David L. Lindsey, Barbara Ras, Brian Floca, George Sessions Perry, Tom Jones, Sergio Troncoso, Sarah Bird, Duane Simolke, Joe M. O'connell, Joanna Wayne, Fred Gipson, Christian Wiman, William ... ... Read more