Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)

Bruce Sterling

The MIT Press, ISBN 0262693267 The consciousness of the objects that surround us and that ever more cheaply and more quickly are being proposed, is one of the cornerstones around which turns a possible different role of 'consumer' in the Western systems. Bruce Sterling, which has long carries on his mailing list of environmental activism and design conscious (Viridian), invites us here to find out analytically the dynamics of the production of the objects themselves, and to reconsider them as our infrastructure, stripping them at the same time, each fetishism iconic. This attitude makes it possible to reveal many processes and needs to arm themselves with historical perspectives and futuristic, but it embodies much of the transformation dynamics of our times, leaving an irresistible aura of charm. This is including the fundamental concept of 'opportunity cost', ie how often unconscious choice to devote time to something having a high cost of lost opportunities. The text benefits from not only the author's style made of a flowing rhythm interrupted by flashes of discursive but integrates seamlessly with graphics by Lorraine Wild with the use of different fonts for keywords, highlighting of the text as if it had been used a special marker lines that connect identical terms in the pages open, efficient and tiny 'sub-headings' summary for * every * page of text. This, among other things, is the last title Mediaworks Pamphlets, series edited by Peter Lunenfeld, and how each title of this series, is also accompanied by a ' webtake ', ie from an applet accessible online that goes to complete conceptually experimentation on design and interaction between print and electronic content, this time made ​​by the German team Schoenerwissen (formerly authors txtkit and Minitasking ). In this case you start with a commentary on the Book of John Thackara (Doors of Perception director of the festival) and lists in continuous scrolling all the words contained in the text by clicking on which you observe in their immediate verbal context.