Hardback / bound
|
English
€22.50
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Description
The radical history of space exploration from the Russian Cosmists to Elon Musk
Intricately dissects seven foundational visions of humanity's future in space, from some of the most well-known and prolific engineers, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and science fiction writers in history. Scharmen's keen eye for structures and systems lets him tease out the common threads of conquest, domination, hope, and fear that drive us towards the stars.
An episodic history of space exploration through the eyes of an architect focusing, not in the concept of conquer and dominion, but in the flawed yet captivating desire to reinvent life anew. Fred Scharmen brilliantly navigates through stories of inventing worlds, multidimensional and a-hierarchical, lingering between reality and fiction
As if from a vantage point somewhere in the endangered atmosphere, Space Force reflects back a sense of what humans are so far by telling stories about their dreams of space travel. Mixed with their eccentric curiosities is their desire to make colonized property out of everything, their racist depravity, their clanking apparatus of national sovereignty, their extractivist hoarding, and their feverish dreams of capital accumulation. These are the little heroes of this little planet busy pursuing their rational plans to dominate it and those who might repair it
In this season of billionaires fleeing, however briefly, up the gravity well, we desperately need a knowledgeable guide to the human exploration of space, the choices it confronts us with, and what it portends for those of us left behind. Fred Scharmen is that guide. His brilliant new Space Forces makes it clear that if space is the place, it's not one that's different from Earth, and if and when we venture there for keeps, it's ourselves that we'll find there.
Whenever I get to read something by Fred Scharmen, I know I'm in for a weird and fascinating ride. Space Forces is no exception.
The inhabitants of the red planet zoom around in a hyperloop and their leader is called - yes, really - The Elon. This, along with an insane amount of other brilliant nuggets, features in Scharmen's lively history of space exploration as a colonial and, ultimately, architectural project.
Scharmen pulls off the delicate balancing act between the specific and the general with a skill that never lets the reader see the effort that goes into it.
By touching on the development of contrasting views of how practical space flight was developed across seven distinct time periods, Scharmen lays the threads of how we got here out in perfect clarity.
red Scharmen teaches architecture and urban design at Morgan State University's School of Architecture and Planning. He is the co-founder of the Working Group on Adaptive Systems, an art and design consultancy based in Baltimore, Maryland. His first book, Space Settlements was published in 2019. His writing has been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Atlantic CityLab, Slate, Log, CLOG, Volume, and Domus. His architectural criticism has appeared in the Architect's Newspaper, and in the local alt-weekly Baltimore City Paper.
Intricately dissects seven foundational visions of humanity's future in space, from some of the most well-known and prolific engineers, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and science fiction writers in history. Scharmen's keen eye for structures and systems lets him tease out the common threads of conquest, domination, hope, and fear that drive us towards the stars.
An episodic history of space exploration through the eyes of an architect focusing, not in the concept of conquer and dominion, but in the flawed yet captivating desire to reinvent life anew. Fred Scharmen brilliantly navigates through stories of inventing worlds, multidimensional and a-hierarchical, lingering between reality and fiction
As if from a vantage point somewhere in the endangered atmosphere, Space Force reflects back a sense of what humans are so far by telling stories about their dreams of space travel. Mixed with their eccentric curiosities is their desire to make colonized property out of everything, their racist depravity, their clanking apparatus of national sovereignty, their extractivist hoarding, and their feverish dreams of capital accumulation. These are the little heroes of this little planet busy pursuing their rational plans to dominate it and those who might repair it
In this season of billionaires fleeing, however briefly, up the gravity well, we desperately need a knowledgeable guide to the human exploration of space, the choices it confronts us with, and what it portends for those of us left behind. Fred Scharmen is that guide. His brilliant new Space Forces makes it clear that if space is the place, it's not one that's different from Earth, and if and when we venture there for keeps, it's ourselves that we'll find there.
Whenever I get to read something by Fred Scharmen, I know I'm in for a weird and fascinating ride. Space Forces is no exception.
The inhabitants of the red planet zoom around in a hyperloop and their leader is called - yes, really - The Elon. This, along with an insane amount of other brilliant nuggets, features in Scharmen's lively history of space exploration as a colonial and, ultimately, architectural project.
Scharmen pulls off the delicate balancing act between the specific and the general with a skill that never lets the reader see the effort that goes into it.
By touching on the development of contrasting views of how practical space flight was developed across seven distinct time periods, Scharmen lays the threads of how we got here out in perfect clarity.
red Scharmen teaches architecture and urban design at Morgan State University's School of Architecture and Planning. He is the co-founder of the Working Group on Adaptive Systems, an art and design consultancy based in Baltimore, Maryland. His first book, Space Settlements was published in 2019. His writing has been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Atlantic CityLab, Slate, Log, CLOG, Volume, and Domus. His architectural criticism has appeared in the Architect's Newspaper, and in the local alt-weekly Baltimore City Paper.