I Am a Bullet : Scenes from an Accelerating Culture - Hardcover

Kuipers, Dean; Aitken, Doug

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609604090 ISBN 13: 9780609604090

Publisher: Crown, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0609604090
• ISBN 13: 9780609604090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192