| | | Hyper-Taiwan Art, Design, Culture Published by Art & Collection Group (Taiwan)  260 pp, full colour, perfect bound ISBN 986-7519-56-6 Distributed in Australia by Manic Exposure 0393841437 RRP A$55.00 Check out the review in Art AsiaPacific magazine by George Alexander. |
A critical journey through postmodern Taiwan using the scooter as a rhizomatic model for navigating the hyper-real. The author speaks with three voices: artist, tourist and academic. Focuses on contemporary art, design and culture. Features a selection of work by young Taiwanese new media artists and designers. |   | |
"Fabulous production of this essay on Taipei: images plus three orfour different kinds of take on the experience of Taipei-the flanneur, the blitzed, the shopper, the tourist, the pin-headed & allusive intellectual-all facets of the author. Hyper-Taiwan presents an exemplary meditation on the experience of urban spaces and de-centred cultural identity. Artist, essayist & gonzo-theoretician, Kurt Brereton is something of a two-way conduit & permeable membrane between east &west, Asia & Australia: the book is beautiful as a photographic essay on the surprising meld of cultures happening in Taiwan and on the continuities that obtain in Taiwan despite change. Brereton proposes that Taiwan isthe first postmodern country of the 21st Century, a dynamic example of a post-media digital culture at work." Ken Bolton Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide, Australia |  |  Kurt Brereton and Chuang,Yuan-Hsun at book launch | |