Robert Hassan: Empires of Speed. Time and the Acceleration of Politics and Society (2009)

The beginning of the 21st century is witnessing the emergence of a social, political and technological revolution in networked computing. We now live in a networked society, but it functions and develops at such an accelerating rate that it becomes increasingly difficult to adequately understand the nature of this radical society. Empires of Speed is the first book to analyse the far-reaching transformations of speed-filled everyday life. In a compelling study Hassan shows that we are leaving behind a modern world based upon the time of the clock, and are entering a new and volatile phase where an accelerating ‘network time’ poses fundamental economic and political challenges in our postmodern world, challenges we barely comprehend and are thus woefully unprepared for.

Publisher BRILL, 2009
Volume 4 of Supplements to The study of time
ISBN 9004175903, 9789004175907
Length 254 pages

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Raqs Media Collective: Seepage (2010)

Raqs is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and means the state that “whirling dervishes” enter into when they whirl. It is also a word used for dance. At the same time, Raqs could be an acronym, standing for “rarely asked questions”…!

This book gathers together a compilation of texts authored by Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta). Raqs has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors, and catalysts of cultural processes. Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events, locates them at the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research, and theory—often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances, and encounters. They live and work in Delhi, based at Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, an initiative they co-founded in 2000. They are members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series. In 2008 they were co-curators of the Manifesta 7 biennale.

Recent solo exhibitions include “Lightbox,” Tate Britain, London (2009), and “Escapement,” Frith Street Gallery, London (2009); group exhibitions include “Experimental Geography,” travelling exhibition, Canada and USA (2008–11), and “Indian Highway,” Serpentine Gallery, London (2008) and Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (2009).

Publisher: Sternberg Press, April 2010
ISBN 978-1-933128-86-3
176 pages

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Michal Murin (ed.): Avalanches 1990-95: Zborník spoločnosti pre nekonvenčnú hudbu (1995) [Slovak]

An anthology of the Society for Non-conventional Music (SNEH).

Translations: Eva Keprtová, Jozef Cseres, Peter Zagar, Miroslava Telúchová, Alexander Avenarius ml.
Publisher SNEH, Society for Non-Conventional Music, Bratislava
ISBN 8096720643
216 pages

PDF (no OCR, updated on 2012-8-3)