Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture - Vidler, Anthony

Clean, tight, unmarked; very minimal wear; Beginning with agoraphobia and claustrophobia in the late 19th century, followed by shell shock and panic fear after WWI, phobias and anxiety came to be seen as the mental condition of modern life. They became incorporated into the media and arts, in particular the spatial arts of architecture, urbanism, and film. This "spatial warping" is now being reshaped by digitalization and virtual reality. Anthony Vidler is concerned in this book with two forms of warped space. The first, a psychological space, is the repository of neuroses and phobias; it is not empty but full of disturbing forms, including those of architecture and the city. The second kind of warping is produced when artists break the boundaries of genre to depict space in new ways. Focusing on current conditions of displacement and placelessness, he examines ways in which contemporary artists and architects have produced new forms of spatial warping. Finally, Vidler looks at the architectural experiments in the light of new digital techniques that, while relying on traditional perspective, have radically transformed the composition, production, and experience - perhaps ever the subject itself - of architecture. 
Very Good
Soft cover
MIT Press
2002
Cambridge, MA