Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events (Arts and Politics of the Everyday) [Paperback]

McKenzie Wark (Author)

Book Description

Series: Arts and Politics of the Everyday | Publication Date: November 22, 1994

"The author's capacity to grasp and interpret these [world media] events is astounding, and her ability to provide insights into a world where unbounded information is circling the earth with the speed of light is startling." —Choice

"... a wide-ranging, quirky and dextrous mix of description, theory and analysis, that documents the perils of the global telecommunications network... " —Times Literary Supplement

"... this is a stimulating, even moving, book, dense with ideas and with many quotable lines." —The New Statesman

"Wark is one of the most original and interesting cultural critics writing today." —Lawrence Grossberg

McKenzie Wark writes about the experience of everyday life under the impact of increasingly global media vectors. We no longer have roots, we have aerials. We no longer have origins, we have terminals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wark describes and critiques the global media information flow that made the Persian Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987 part of everyday experience. She calls this phenomenon telethesia. This is a new geography: we are everywhere in the world at once, a place constructed entirely by the convergence of mediated flows of information—virtual geography. She does not condemn this third reality, but instead establishes the grounds for a new form of cultural studies that follows the contours of the media event and does not force the event into existing disciplines. The author's capacity to grasp and interpret these events is astounding, and her ability to provide insights into a world where unbounded information is circling the earth with the speed of light is startling. Her language at first seems forced and contrived as she pours out abstract and speculative explanations of vectors, nature, telethesia, etc. However, in the end she comes close to making the linearity of print project a world of global electronic information in which traditional modes of rationality are inadequate to explain what happens when information passes out of the orbit of one community into another. She demonstrates that the unstoppable rush of electronic information not only makes everything in the world knowable, but also carries with it the possibility of disinformation and discontrol. Recommended for upper—division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections.R. Cathcart, Queens College, CUNY, Choice, May 1995

(R. Cathcart, Queens College, CUNY Choice 1995)

About the Author

McKENZIE WARK is professor of Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of Gamer Theory (2007), A Hacker Manifesto (2004) and The Beach Beneath the Street (2011). Virtual Geography (1995) was his first book, and was a Choice Book of the Year in 1995.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (November 22, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253208947
• ISBN-13: 978-0253208941
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #529,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

McKenzie Wark is originally from Newcastle, Australia, but moved to New York City in 2000. He is currently Professor of Media and Culture at Eugene Lang College the New School for the Liberal Arts and Professor of Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable & Insightful Book By Australian Theorist, April 19, 1999

By 

Alex Burns ([e-mail]) (Melbourne (Australia)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events (Arts and Politics of the Everyday) (Paperback)

A seminal book in media theory, McKenzie Wark looks at the psychological impact of 'shock' events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square uprisings, the 1987 Stock Market collapse, the Persinal Gulf War, and the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson trials. The book is written for a university level audience, but is accessible to the new reader. Wark has had many articles published in international journals, and is frequently featured in Australia in Arena, 21.C, World Art, and major metropolitan newspapers. He is one of the most respected Australian theorists of a slightly left-of-third-way bent.

Wark examines how the media reports these events, what the impact on the larger cultural psyche is, and most interesting, how the journalists who report the events are affected themselves. Wark draws in contemporary postmodern and cultural theory, but his writing is insightful, crisp, and relevant.

Another important aspect of the book is that Wark is able to carefully dissect the U.S. media critically, whilst not being caught up in prevailing models (Chomsky, Bagdikian et. al). He brings a fresh, mature, and intelligent voice to a frequently crowded arena.

He is also somewhat unusual in that he doesn't simply repeat the doctrines of Marshall McLuhan and others, but really examines events. He is careful to include himself in this description, and his anecdotes are simultaneously revealing and powerful.