Here is the next installment of "Book Briefs," the series of occasional posts featuring short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that publishers send to me for consideration on this blog. Obviously, these briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than those that end up as long reviews.
Accumulation: The Art, Architecture, and Media of Climate Change edited by Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch, Daniel A. Barber, Anton Vidokle | e-flux Architecture | February 2022 | 7 x 10 inches | 272 pages | $30 | Amazon / BookshopThe old saying goes that if you want to know the weather just stick your head out the window. But what about climate" If you want to understand climate and how it has changed over time, "media is necessary," the editors of this volume of 22 essays contend. Usually such media takes the form of charts, graphs, maps, and other visualizations of data, showing how climatic zones have shifted northward in the Northern Hemisphere, for instance, or how much global carbon emissions come from the construction and operation of buildings. This being a publication of e-flux Architecture, architecture ? "a material and symbolic intervention in the lifeworld" ? is the subject of choice, one that "works towards new understandings of effective [...] means of engaging ecosystems and behaviors." Although the editors write that the essay...