青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

The 1920s saw the dawn of a colorful and dynamic “Machine Age” as Paris and other cities in the West rebuilt and industrialized following World War I. The year 1925, in particular, proved to be a watershed: this was the year that the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (aka the Art Deco Exhibition) was held in Paris, marking the zenith of the Art Deco style with its geometric forms that integrated harmoniously with industrial objects. The turning point for Japan, meanwhile, arrived a little earlier in 1923, when the destruction of the Great Kanto Earthquake led to the rapid remaking of Tokyo and other cities into modern metropolises. Throughout this brief period between two great wars, as the world veered between prosperity and shadow, attitudes toward machines and toward rationality shifted dramatically.

This book explores dimensions of the human-machine relationship in 1920s and 1930s Paris as well as more widely throughout Europe, North America, and Japan. It offers timely insights for us living a century later in a world where computers and the Internet advance at a dizzying pace and artificial intelligence stands poised to drastically reshape our lives.

Partial table of contents
Chapter 1. Man and Machine: Modernist Utopianism
Chapter 2. Graceful Machines: Art Deco and the Dream of the World’s Fair
Chapter 3. Meaningless Machines: Dada and Surrealism
Chapter 4. Modern Japan: Reception and Application of Art Deco and Machine Aesthetics
Epilogue. 21st Century “Modern Times”