Sham Ruins: A User's Guide

Sham Ruins: A User's Guide - Hardcover

$145.78
Sale price  $145.78 Regular price 
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Sham Ruins: A User's Guide

Sham Ruins: A User's Guide - Hardcover

by Brian Willems
$145.78
Sale price  $145.78 Regular price 

Book Overview

by Brian Willems (Author)

In the middle of the eigtheenth century, a new fad found its way into the gardens of England's well-to-do: building fake Gothic ruins. Newly constructed castle towers and walls looked like they were already falling apart, even on the first day of their creation. Made of stone, plaster, or even canvas, these "sham ruins" are often considered an embarrassing blip in English architectural history. However, Sham Ruins: A User's Guide expands the specific example of the sham ruin into a general principle to examine the way purposely broken objects can be used to both uncover old truths and invent new ones. Along with architecture, work by Ivan Vladislavic, Tom Stoppard, Alain Mabanckou, Aleksei Fedorchenko, Michael Haneke, and Sturtevant is used to develop this thesis, as well as artifacts such as pre-torn jeans, fake histories, and broken screen apps. Using these examples, one of the key questions the book raises is: what is it that sham ruins ruin? In other words, if real ruins are ruins of what they actually are, then sham ruins should be considered ruins of what they are not. Thus sham ruins are about imposing new meaning where such meaning does not and should not exist. They also can show how things we think are functioning well are actually already broken. Sham ruins do this, and much more, by being lies, ruses, and embarrassments. This is what gives them the power with which we can think about objects in new, unintended ways.

Author Biography

Brian Willems is Associate Professor of Literature and Film Theory at the University of Split, Croatia. He is most recently the author of Speculative Realism and Science Fiction (2017) and Shooting the Moon (2015). He has curated exhibitions of new media art in Croatia and Slovenia and is the author of the novella Henry, Henry (2017).

Number of Pages: 70
Dimensions: 0.25 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN
Publication Date: December 07, 2021
ISBN9781032081311
Author Brian Willems
PublisherRoutledge
GenreLiterature and Design
FormatHardcover
PublishedDecember 2021
LanguageENG- English
Pages70
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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