Marc Augé: Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1992–) [EN, ES, CR, IT, HU, BR-PT]

“A provocative study of the ‘non-space’ which defines our age’s love for excess of information and space.

An ever-increasing proportion of our lives is spent in supermarkets, airports and hotels, on motorways or in front of TVs, computers and cash machines. This invasion of the world by what Marc Augé calls “non-space” results in a profound alteration of awareness: something we perceive, but only in a partial and incoherent manner. Augé uses the concept of “supermodernity” to describe a situation of excessive information and excessive space. In this fascinating essay he seeks to establish an intellectual armature for an anthropology of supermodernity.”

Originally published in French as Non-lieux: Introduction á une anthropologie de la surmodenité, Editions de Seuil, 1992

English edition
Translated by John Howe
Publisher Verso, 1995
ISBN 1859840515, 9781859840511
122 pages

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Publisher (EN)

Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (English, trans. John Howe, 1995, updated on 2014-3-20)
Los no lugares: Espacios del anonimato: Una antropología de la sobremodernidad (Spanish, trans. Margarita Mizraji, 2000)
Nemjesta: Uvod u moguću antropologiju supermoderniteta (Croatian, trans. Vlatka Valentić, 2002)
Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, 2nd ed. (English, trans. John Howe, 2008, added on 2020-8-2)
Nonluoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità (Italian, trans. Dominique Rolland, 2009, added on 2020-8-2)
Nem-helyek: Bevezetés a szürmodernitás antropológiájába (Hungarian, trans. Agoston Faber, 2012, added on 2020-8-2)
Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da supermodernidade (BR-Portuguese, trans. Maria Lucia Pereira, 9th ed., 2012, 50 MB, added on 2020-8-2)

Dick Raaijmakers: Cahier-M: A Brief Morphology of Electric Sound (2000)

Cahier-M is about the morphology of electric sound. This inherently single-layered type of sound is discussed in the light of ‘neo-plastic’ music as suggested by the painter Piet Mondriaan in the 1920’s. He advocated a kind of music that consisted of single-layered, ‘single-colour’ electric sounds.

Furthermore, Cahier-M devotes ample attention to the morphological relationship between the typically uniform nature of electric sound and the multi-layered sound structures used by post-WWII serial composers. The discussion of this subject also covers layering (photo)graphic images as practised by the French physiologist E.J. Marey at the end of the 19th century, flipping monadic sound aggregates as practised by Karel Goeyvaerts since 1952, the application of so-called ‘horizontal arpeggios’ by Pierre Boulez around 1980, and the introduction of ‘liquid forms’ in contemporary architecture.

These aspects are illustrated based on a still valid morphological analysis of sound conducted by the author between 1963 and 1967.

Cahier-M comprises four chapters: ‘Invented Sound’, ‘Diagonal Sound’, ‘Composed Sound’ and ‘Spatial Sound’.

Publisher Leuven University Press, 2000
Volume 3 of Collected Writings of the Orpheus Institute
ISBN 9058670767
123 pages

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See also Raaijmakers’ Method (1985) and The Destructive Character (1992).

René Clair: Cinema Yesterday and Today (1970/1972)

This is the first English translation of Rene Clair’s Cinema d’hier, cinema d’aujourd’hui, which, when it appeared in France in 1970, easily won the prize for best film book of the year. In it the master of French film comedy plays with time in much the same way that a film editor might – he combines reviews written during the twenties and thirties with comments made in 1950 and again in 1970, and includes brief notes from other years as well as an imaginary dialogue with himself across time. The result is surprisingly unified. It is Clair’s coherent vision of the cinema as he surveys his entire career and the whole of film history. In the best sense of the term, it is an essay, and one of the very few such works written by a giant in the world of film.

Mixing personal memories with critical perception and aesthetics, he discusses the making of Entr’acte and comments specifically on a large number of European and American films. He recounts his struggle through the birth of the sound film, hailing it for its potential but regretting the loss of a world of dreams.

Clair does not consider cinema in a vacuum but alludes frequently to the works of Rimbaud, Jarry, Shakespeare, Moliere, Racine, De Quincey and a host of others. His own writing is full of intelligence, freedom and elegance. His defense of comedy is striking, and he gives ample play to his own comic sense in the many anecdotes that everywhere enliven the text. Perhaps his love of cinema is best illustrated by his use of three words in describing it–“miracle,” “faith” and “grace.”

Originally published in French as Cinéma d’hier, cinéma d’aujourd’hui, Gallimard, 1970
Translated by Stanley Appelbaum
Edited and with an Introduction by R C Dale
Publisher Dover Publications, 1972
ISBN 0486227758, 9780486227757
260 pages

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