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Book Cover
Book
Author Flusser, Vilém, 1920-1991.

Title The shape of things : a philosophy of design / Vilém Flusser
Edition First English edition
Published London : Reaktion, 1999

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  745.401 Flu/Sot  AVAILABLE
Description 126 pages ; 21 cm
Contents Introduction / Martin Pawley -- About the Word Design -- Form and Material -- War and the State of Things -- About Forms and Formulae -- The Designer's Way of Seeing -- The Factory -- The Lever Strikes Back -- Shelters, Screens and Tents -- Design: Obstacle for/to the Removal of Obstacles -- Why Do Typewriters Go 'Click'? -- The Ethics of Industrial Design? -- Design as Theology -- Wittgenstein's Architecture -- Bare Walls -- With As Many Holes As a Swiss Cheese -- The Non-Thing 1 -- The Non-Thing 2 -- Carpets -- Pots -- Shamans and Dancers with Masks -- The Submarine -- Wheels
Summary "This book presents for the first time in English an array of essays on design by the seminal Czech-born media critic and philosopher Vilem Flusser. It puts forward the view that our future depends on design. In a series of insightful short essays, touching on a wide range of subjects - industrial ethics; tents, umbrellas and shamans; the architecture of Wittgenstein; ceramic vessels as bearers of social meaning - Flusser emphasizes the interrelationships between art and science, theology and technology, and archaeology and architecture. Just as formal creativity has produced both weapons of destruction and great works of art, Flusser believed that the shape of things (and the designs behind them) represent both a threat and an opportunity for designers of the future."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 123-125)
Notes Translated from the German
Subject Aesthetics.
Communication in design.
Design -- Philosophy.
Author Mathews, Anthony
LC no. 00002020
ISBN 1861890559 (paperback)
Other Titles Philosophy of design