Militant Modernism (Zero Books)

New
Illustrated
2009
$12.65

Militant Modernism argues for a Modernism of everyday life, immersed in questions of socialism, sexual politics and technology. It features new readings of some familiar names - Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, Vladimir Mayakovsky - and much more on the lesser known, quotidian modernists of the 20th century. The chapters range from a study of industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, Russian Constructivism in architecture, the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich in film and design, and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen. Against the world of 'there is no alternative', this book talks about things we haven't done yet, in the past tense.

Synopsis

"Militant Modernism" argues for a Modernism of everyday life, immersed in questions of socialism, sexual politics and technology. It features new readings of some familiar names - Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, Vladimir Mayakovsky - and much more on the lesser known, quotidian modernists of the 20th century. The chapters range from a study of industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, Russian Constructivism in architecture, the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich in film and design, and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen. Against the world of 'there is no alternative', this book talks about things we haven't done yet, in the past tense.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 150
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: O Books
Published: 24 Apr 2009
ISBN 10: 1846941768
ISBN 13: 9781846941764

Media Reviews

With svelte prose, agile wit, and alarming erudition, Owen Hatherley pries open the prematurely closed case of early 20th Century modernism. This slim and shapely, ideas-packed and intensely-felt book is neither a misty-eyed memorial nor a dour inquest, but a verging-on-erotic mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Rediscovering the enchantment of demystification and the sexiness of severity, Hatherley harks forward to modernism's utopian spirit: critical, radically democratic, dedicated to the conscious transformation of everyday life, determined to build a better world. Simon Reynolds, Author of Rip It Up and Start Again - Postpunk 1978-84 A call to have the courage to be modern against all the current postmodern pieties of exhaustion and fragmentation, Owen Hatherley's brilliant reactivation of the utopian impulses of the modernist avant-garde is Brecht meeting Ballard to create the science-fiction of socialism. Benjamin Noys, Author of Georges Bataille and The Culture of Death

Author Bio

Owen Hatherley was born in Southampton in 1981. He writes the architecture/media/politics blog Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy (nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com).He is a regular contributor to Blueprint, the New Statesman, Socialist Worker and The Wire and is on the editorial boards of Historical Materialism and Archinect. He lives in South-east London. Militant Modernism is his first book.