Sensoria: Thinkers for the Twentieth-first Century: Thinkers for the Twentieth-first Century

Design, Politics, the Environment: a survey of the key thinkers and ideas that are rebuilding the world in the shadow of the anthropocene As we face the compounded crises of late capitalism, environmental catastrophe and technological transformation, who are the thinkers and the ideas who will allow us to understand the world we live in? McKenzie Wark surveys three areas at the cutting edge of current critical thinking: design, environment, technology and introduces us to the thinking of nineteen major writers. Each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and connections to the work of the others. The authors include: Sianne Ngai, Kodwo Eshun, Lisa Nakamura, Hito Steyerl, Yves Citton, Randy Martin, Jackie Wang, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Achille Mbembe, Deborah Danowich and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Eyal Weizman, Cory Doctorow, Benjamin Bratton, Tiziana Terranova, Keller Easterling, Jussi Parikka. Wark argues that we are too often told that expertise is obtained by specialisation. Sensoria connects the themes and arguments across intellectual silos. They explore the edges of disciplines to show how we might know the world: through the study of culture, the different notions of how we create such things, and the impact that the machines that we devise have had upon us. The book is a vital and timely introduction to the future both as a warning but also as a road map on how we might find our way out of the current crisis. Introduction: Toward the common task -- I. Aesthetics / Sianne Ngai: Zany, cute, interesting -- Kodwo Ashun: Black accelerationism -- Lisa Nakamura: Digitizing race -- Hito Steyerl: Art is beauty that does not try to kill us -- Yves Citton: Ecologies of attention -- Randy Martin: After capitalism, the derivative -- II. Ethnographics / Jackie Wang: Prisoners of the algorithm -- Wang Hui: China's twenty-first century -- Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing: Friction in the universal joint -- Achille Mbembe: Africa contra Hegel -- Déborah Danowski and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: Myth today -- Eyal Weizman: Climate colonialism -- III. Technics / Cory Doctorow: Information wants to be free, but... -- Benjamin Bratton: The stack to come -- Lev Manovich: At the coalface of the interface -- Tiziana Terranova: The address of power -- Keller Easterling: Extrastatecraft and the digital city -- Jussi Parikka: Geology of media -- Notes -- Index As we face the compounded crises of late capitalism - environmental catastrophe, pandemics, and technological transformation - who are the thinkers with a grasp on our world? McKenzie Wark surveys three areas at the cutting edge of current critical thinking: media ecologies, postcolonial ethnography, and the design of technologies. She introduces us to the ideas of seventeen major writers who, when brought together, contribute to the common task of knowing the world. Each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and opening connections to the work of the others