The Logos

Unemployed, lonesome, abandoned by his lover, an obscure artist on the verge of despair begins to question the worth of his craft-until, without warning, he lands the opportunity of a lifetime. Courted by a wealthy patron with enigmatic motives, he yields his talents to corporate interests. In theory, his brief is to sell his soul-to mastermind a publicity campaign for a line of products designed to enhance human perception. In practice, though, he exerts sway over the souls of others. Given freedom to treat the campaign as an artistic endeavour in its own right, he comes to use the public sphere as a forum for shaping aesthetic sensibilities on a scale that others could only dream of. But how far can he extend his ambitions before they break him?

In his bold, uncompromising follow-up to the acclaimed Square Wave, Mark de Silva probes the extremes of human vision. Troubling the relationships between spectatorship and intimacy, beauty and decadence, creativity and exploitation, The Logos challenges the habits with which we look at the world around us-and the ways our selective sight distorts the meaning of our days.

Mark de Silva is the author of two novels, Square Wave and The Logos, as well as the essay collection Points of Attack.