The Whole Earth. California and the Disappearance of the Outside

Editors: Diedrich Diederichsen and Anselm Franke
Design: Studio Matthias Görlich
German / English, 26 x 35 cm, 208 pages
Sternberg Press, Berlin 2013
ISBN: 978‐3‐943365‐76‐4 (German)
ISBN: 978‐3‐943365‐64‐1 (English)
Price: € 26,00

Available at Haus der Kulturen der Welt and at bookstores, mail order buying / postal shopping via the webshop

In the year 1966, a young man named Stewart Brand handed out buttons in San Francisco reading: “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” Two years later, the NASA photograph of the “blue planet” appeared on the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog. In creating the catalogue, frequently described as the analogue forerunner of Google, Brand had founded one of the most influential publications of recent decades. It mediated between cyberneticists and hippies, nature romantics and technology geeks, psychedelia and computer culture, and thus triggered defining impulses for the environmentalist movement and the rise of the digital network culture.

With contributions by Sabeth Buchmann, Mercedes Bunz, Diedrich Diederichsen, Kodwo Eshun, Anselm Franke, Erich Hörl, Norman M. Klein, Maurizio Lazzarato, Flora Lysen, Eva Meyer, John Palmesino, Laurence Rickels, Bernd M. Scherer, Fred Turner