I Am A Bullet is about people transformed by an accelerating world. These stunning essays combine on-site research and penetrating images as they investigate unique individuals in raw and open engagement with speed. From the literal velocity of breaking the sound barrier in a car to the consumerist purity of Tokyo youth to the violence of Native American gangs, this book delivers an essential understanding of how the speed of change is shaping your life right now--and tomorrow.
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The title of this mélange of journalism, cultural critique, and pop art comes directly from the mouth of the only man who has ever traveled close to the speed of sound without a vehicle. In 1960, Captain Joseph Kittinger jumped from a helium balloon almost 20 miles up, with 99 percent of the earth's atmosphere beneath him. He plummeted at 614 mph, but strangely, felt nothing. Until his senses reoriented themselves, he thought he was floating.
Right now, according to the creators of this intriguing book, acceleration is the main event. It is "the prime physical, technological and even spiritual engine of this moment." The question the book tries to answer is, How do we experience speed? To find out, the author and photographer went on-site to document 10 subcultures that particularly embody the strategy of constant movement as an effort to get outside of time. Probing essays and photo collages examine public auctions, which feed on the increasing frenzy of consumerism, and the infamously speedy Japanese youth culture, where individualistic critique is emerging for the first time and identity is up for grabs. Truckers become a rolling metaphor for America as they constantly fail to escape from time. Demolition derby drivers look for raw catharsis. And in clock-free Las Vegas, "no time is good time and good time is lucky." Then there is the pandemic of gangs on the Sioux reservations in South Dakota, an idea introduced through media bombardment. This is not necessarily easy reading (the typeface itself is often tiny), but it does offer fascinating insight into the American mythological terrain of becoming (which requires perpetual motion) and the consequences of "constantly treading water at the surface of change." --Lesley Reed
From the Author
I Am A Bullet is about the perception of speed and acceleration in contemporary culture. It is an essay in photos and text. The thesis of this essay is that acceleration itself now drives the historical process, and that people have begun to integrate obsolescence and fast change into every aspect of global culture.
We have chosen 10 primary subjects that demonstrate speed as it occurs in global culture right now. These subjects are fairly undocumented or little known, and range from physical speed (the only man to fall through the speed of sound) to the evolution of language (auctioneers) to the power of media as it affects lifestyle (Japan, Gangs on South Dakotas Pine Ridge Reservation) to acceleration as a quality of populism and populist entertainment (Bollywood). Our purpose is to bring a comprehensive understanding of speed to a mass pop culture audience. The objective is to surprise, entertain, and then inform.
This book is unique in that every subject is researched live, on location in the field. We have brought a journalistic approach to a book that is part artwork, part pop culture media, and part scholarly cultural critique. The combination of reportorial narrative, fast-moving and pop-edged photography, and the compelling integrated graphic design treatment by design stars Associates In Science will make this an essay unlike any other on the shelf. This is a whole new approach, with very few precedents.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Do rayguns have bullets?,
This review is from: I Am a Bullet : Scenes from an Accelerating Culture (Hardcover)
I'd actually give the photography and design of this book 4.5 stars, but feel the book is let down by the text. It reads as a series of magazine articles which skim over the subject matter without saying much that is particularly insightful. I can't help comparing the text to the work of someone like Paul Virillio on speed and contemporary life, although obviously Virillio writes from the other end of the cultural spectrum.Doug Aitken's photography is superb as usual. I'm amazed at how he doesn't seem to get locked into one particular style, yet can still pull his imagery together into a cohesive whole. The design of the book is definitely from the Raygun school, where they make you work to get the words. That works in this context, and does not feel too overworked. Overall this book stems from an interesting idea, the notion of different versions of "speed" in global culture. If you enjoy magazines like Raygun, The Face, Dazed and Confused etc, you'll like this.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
text at the speed of sound,
By Penny DaMuco (los angeles, ca) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I Am a Bullet : Scenes from an Accelerating Culture (Hardcover)
It seems Aitken and Kuipers have taken the best lessons from their association with "Raygun" and left behind the more Sprockets- like habits that often made that publication frustrating, if not plain unreadable. We not only know exactly what Kuipers is talking about in each essay, but get involved enough in these disparate and exotic locales to want to make the thematic stretches that are sometimes required. The text style is something I found especially interesting, and be it genius or accident, placing all text in caps accelerates the rate of comprehension in an almost imperceptible way. Given the theme of acceleration and the speed of culture, I found myself part of an experiment I quite enjoyed. The piece about the Lakota boys in Wanblee forsaking the warrior culture of their ancestors for that of TV sensibility gangland posturing is chilling and unbearably sad. Aitken's photos are exceptionally moving in this piece, especially that of a boy around 16 leaning against a tattered babyseat with an aluminum Louisville Slugger, waiting in his res grotto of chaos, diapers, and abject boredom for something to move him. I like very much that Kuipers refrains from editorializing about their lives, and he seems to have an unfailing sense about when to let the subject speak for him or herself. An outstanding effort.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
speed freak,
By Clint Rasmussen (San Francisco, Ca) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I Am a Bullet : Scenes from an Accelerating Culture (Hardcover)
Dude, this book is the bomb. I saw it on my friend's coffee table, and first started just looking at the pictures. I especially liked the stuff about the demolition derby, because those people are like Springer material, but you get the feeling that they have real lives and stuff, which is a perspective I was totally into. When I started reading the essays, at first I didn't get that it was all interconnected, but by the end I understood that there is a lot in common between say, teenage chicks in Tokyo and gangbangers in South Dakota. Even if you're too lazy to actually read it, you'll look a lot smarter just having it around.
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