BARBARA PENNER & OTHERS
EXTINCT: A COMPENDIUM OF OBSOLETE OBJECTS (2021)
OUTLINE
So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused—superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct gathers together an exceptional range of artists, curators, architects, critics, and academics, including Hal Foster, Barry Bergdoll, Deyan Sudjic, Tacita Dean, Emily Orr, Richard Wentworth, and many more. In eighty-five essays, contributors nominate “extinct” objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal accounts .
REVIEWS
This new book from Reaktion is a delight to peruse. Rather than mocking the failed, superseded or outmoded, it is more of a celebration of 85 extinct objects and the visions that drove them, as nominated by a range of historians, curators, architects, academics and artists. - Pamela Buxton.
In 85 illustrated essays, contributors nominate ‘extinct’ objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal essays, speaking of not only obsolete technologies, but other ways of thinking, making and interacting with the world. Extinct is filled with curious, half-remembered objects, each one evoking a future that never came to pass. - London Review.
"A truly fascinating and consistently unexpected account of a forgotten landscape of lost futures. This richly original work chronicles the designed world of the undead and, at the same time, challenges today's easy consensus of progress and modernization. Entertaining, jolting, and scholarly, it is a superb counterblast to our own age of relentless upgrades and product improvements."--Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
MEET THE AUTHOR
CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF THE AUTHORS TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK
