Speed Limits

A stunning exhibition catalogue to mark the centenary of the foundation of the Italian futurist movement, whose 1909 manifesto proclaimed “that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.” The book contains the first-ever anthology of key nineteenth and twentieth-century statements on speed and slowness from Thomas de Quincey to F. T. Marinetti to J. G. Ballard, and it provides an innovative, synthetic, in-depth investigation into speed’s significance with respect to modern life―time-space compression; and new ideas about pleasure, selfhood, and consumption; changes in the character and pace of urban and rural life; new modes of organizing, communicating, and sharing information. The exhibition will be launched at the Canadian Center for Architecture (Montreal) in May 2009, in concomitance with the Montreal Grand Prix Formula One race. It will then travel to the Wolfsonian-FIU (Miami Beach) to reopen in February 2010 during the annual celebrations of Daytona Speed Week.