16 Dec 2011

Axl Books: Nihilism, Art, Technology | Second Nature

Nihilism, Art, Technology
Sven-Olov Wallenstein
ISBN 9789186883010
July 2011
130 pages
English


Beginning in an analysis of three paradigmatic instances of the encounter between art and technology in modernism—the invention of photography, the step beyond art in Futurism and Constructivism, and the interpretation of technology in debates on architectural theory in the 1920s and '30s—this book analyzes three philosophical responses to the question of nihilism—those of Walter Benjamin, Ernst Jünger, and Martin Heidegger—all of which are characterized by an avant-garde sensibility that looks to art as a way to counter the crisis of modernity.


Second Nature: Origins and Originality in Art, Science, and New Media
Rolf Hughes, Jenny Sundén (eds.)
ISBN 9789197859882
July 2011
262 pages
English

With the practices of art, science and technology increasingly converging, the concepts of origins and originality raise some of the most pressing questions in contemporary research, including issues of agency and accountability, hybridity and identity, intellectual property and oeuvre, intention and authority. These, and a constellation of related philosophical, economic, aesthetic, legislative and political concerns, are today subject to rapid reconfiguration due to the current pace of technological and theoretical change.

For more information on the these and other titles, please visit www.axlbooks.com.