Old Things

Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects

In an era of materialism and anxiety, we should slow down and look back at the "old story" of civilization and technological development from outside the orbit of progress narrative and consumerism.
Many heavyweight scholars and artists gathered to use the "failure" of 85 extinct objects
Recalling other possibilities for people to get along with the world🌊
Editor's Recommendation:
◎ Kodak film, Polaroid camera, teletype, bracket set, Concorde... 85 old inventions, 85 stories of their demise, each with its own reasons. Many heavyweight scholars, artists, and architects gathered together, combining rigorous historical research and deep personal reflection, to look back on the old stories of civilization and technological development.
✦ “We believe that studying things that have vanished has much to offer us about the world today. Narratives of the history of technology often focus on innovation, emphasizing novelty and fantasy imbued with a sense of destiny, and pay little attention to discarded objects or failed explorations. But this book argues that the history of things becomes richer if we also consider the flip side of progress—the contradictions, obsolescence, accidents, destruction, and failure that are all integral to modernity.”
👀
◎ Turning our focus from "human beings" to "objects", from "new technology" to "disappearing things", and looking back at human society and history from the perspective of old things, we will recognize a recognition logic that is different from "progress", "development", "new products" and "new technologies", which will help us to extricate ourselves from the fast-paced, high-intensity and high-density contemporary life and see the possibility of another life.
We live in an era of endless product creation and constant iteration. This unprecedented abundance of material goods is accompanied by the impetuousness and anxiety fueled by materialistic desires and narratives of progress. This book examines the dangers of social Darwinism and the linear narrative of progress, hoping to rekindle alternative possibilities for how we interact with the world through the stories of old objects.
The development of technology and design doesn't always follow a linear, step-by-step progression. Instead, it progresses in leaps and bounds, sometimes with a resurgence. In this process of ups and downs, we discover that practicality—rather than mere "innovation" or "progress"—possesses a more fundamental value. This not only helps resolve the conflict between humans and the environment, but also helps us soothe our own inner struggles with the pressures of consumption.
🎞️
Through the life stories of old objects, we will see a truth different from the commodity world and return to another reality: we have limited time, limited life, and limited energy, just as the earth has limited energy. In this double "limitation", unlimited innovation and possession will not bring deeper happiness or a higher sense of value.
✦ This book advocates the concept of applicable technology, that is, in a smaller scope, combining local communities, environments, and population conditions to form a more sustainable technological solution, so that the problems in life are no longer unconditionally "optimized" and no longer create new problems while solving them. Instead, a balanced structure is formed to build a home that can be stably lived in.
✦ Within such limitations, people can also return more to themselves, move towards the depth of spirit or civilization, and realize more personal possibilities - applicable technology and moderate life.
✨
◎The content of this book covers all areas of human life, from food, clothing, housing and transportation to communications, medical care, entertainment, art and fashion, connecting all aspects of society in a scattered manner. Everyone can read the content that concerns them.
✦ Some stories will make you laugh out loud but also make you feel quite amused, such as Edison's anti-gravity underwear (a kind of underwear that allows you to float freely when you wear it) and the snail telegraph (through two "snails in love", humans can send messages to each other across the ocean).
✦ Some stories will make you sigh, realizing that there is a heavy background behind the rotation of objects, such as arsenic-containing wallpaper (which was highly praised for its unusually bright and beautiful colors, but also brought arsenic, an ingredient in arsenic, into thousands of households) and the leucotomy device (which treated mental illness by "operating" on the brain, which was once regarded as a huge advancement in psychiatry and countless people received this treatment).
✦ Some stories are sobering, you ponder the gains and losses, ultimately feeling only the emptiness of all that passes. Take, for example, the telephone table, the radio and television cabinet, Kodak film, the MiniDisc, and the Moon Tower. Inventions shove into existence, and the accompanying objects, more deeply ingrained in our lives, are shoved into the abyss of history.
Some stories inspire us today, like the Arundel Prints (handmade art reproductions that emphasize exquisite craftsmanship, like a master's translation), the Stanley 55 Combination Planer (which emphasizes the interaction and collaboration between people, machines, and materials, creating a unique resonance between people and objects), the Trombe Wall (which uses solar energy to achieve autonomous heating in homes), and the "Think City" electric car (a pioneer in electric vehicles, constructed with 95% recyclable materials).
🎈
Many of the objects in this book were created on the eve of the technological explosion, in the "childhood" of technology. They therefore display astonishing imagination, unlike the current era of relative maturity and a relatively certain path of technological development. They can provide much inspiration for contemporary design and invention, such as:
In the research on powered exoskeleton systems inspired by the "human ship," wearable robots called "auto-anthropomorphic machines" have force feedback systems and emotion simulation logic. This approach, with a greater emphasis on physical perception, opens up a new direction for the development of "augmented reality" that is different from "virtualizing" it through audio-visual experience.
✦ The pneumatic postal system was built underground in cities, using air pressure to transport items through pipelines. It could deliver lightweight items such as letters within 30 minutes, making it more convenient than today's "flash delivery";
The Daimaxon House attempts to address the housing shortage through small prefabricated housing components. It fully utilizes knowledge of dynamics, using the house's unique shape to create air vortices to regulate indoor temperature, and a built-in water circulation system to avoid water waste...
💡
◎The book is accompanied by 119 precious pictures, covering many fields such as architectural technology, smart technology, sanitary products, urban planning, and transportation, allowing us to have a more three-dimensional perception of the stories of these old objects through visual means.
The editors invited authors from all walks of life, including curators, critics, artists, architects, and scholars, to identify and write about the cases of disappearing things at all scales, to identify as rigorously as possible the various processes and forces that lead to the disappearance of objects, and to use precious historical photos and materials to restore these stories that span multiple fields, providing us with different perspectives to solve problems large and small.
🎁
◎The cover adopts a retro color scheme of red, yellow and green, the dust jacket is made of Japanese advertising paper (rough surface printing), and the inner cover is printed directly on the lining paper, recreating the raw aura of old objects with a rough yet slightly transparent texture.
🎙️
Celebrity media recommendations:
This is a truly captivating and constantly unexpected work about a forgotten world. It chronicles the stories of vanished objects with a remarkable originality, while also challenging today's simplistic understandings of progress and modernization. It's entertaining, provocative, and scholarly, offering a brilliant riposte to our age of constant product upgrades and innovation.
—Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A Museum: The objects in our lives have always been constantly being reinvented, as new designs become more efficient, attractive, economical, or environmentally friendly. But never before has this innovation occurred at such a rapid pace or on such a large scale, as in the digital age. This book explores this phenomenon in depth, offers insightful analysis, and pays tribute to some of the special objects we have lost in the "evolution" of design.
— Alice Rosterhorn, author of Design is an Attitude This is a wonderfully whimsical book about how the ghosts of “dead inventions” continue to live on in our modern world—not just in our minds but in our daily lives. I was surprised by how addictive it was to discover how these technological relics shaped the landscape of our time.
—Mark Miodovenic, author of "The Important Things" This book offers a captivating exploration of the vast array of objects, systems, and strategies no longer used by humans. These ghosts of design actively haunt the present and conjure up alternative futures. Each story is epic, and this remarkable book examines not only the past but also our future.
— Beatrice Colomina, Professor of Architectural History at Princeton University
Introduction:
This book explores a collection of objects that once existed but are now gone. Some of these artifacts and technologies were once ubiquitous, while others remained only concepts or prototypes, rarely ever actually existing. We are interested not only in the disappearance of these objects—some of which were once familiar to us—but also in what their disappearance reveals about the world we have created.
What’s most captivating about these essays is the reminder that vanishing objects represent not just technologies but also different ways of thinking, producing, interacting with the world, and attitudes toward the body, craft, reproduction, beauty, art, communication, movement, leisure, love, class, cultural identity, nature, and artificial intelligence. Ultimately, each vanishing object embodies an imaginary of the future that remains open to us even after the object itself has become obsolete.

2025-02-01

中国友谊出版公司

the new wave

456

9787505759992