Art of the X-Files, The

Art of the X-Files, The

Reflecting our world in a uniquely haunting way, The X-Files has engendered a new look of mystery, conspiracy, phenomenon, and fear. These enigmatic, elusive images have had a profound and compelling impact on our visual reality, both feeding into and drawing from mainstream America's fascination with the subversive, the disowned, and the disillusioned. This innovative volume, a visual response to Chris Carter's dark, uneasy creation, collects the works of more than sixty cutting-edge artists. Representing a cross section of contemporary visual arts, these photographers, painters, scultptors, graphic designers, and digital media artists have produced works that reflect their personal interpretation of The X-Files : as a cultural phenomenon, as a new chapter in television history, as an engrossing cosmic conspiracy. Many pieces are accompanied by a statement from the artist, explaining the inspiration behind his or her contribution--ranging from an episode to a line of dialouge, form a particular incident to a theme within the entire series. Illustrated with video stills from the episodes, this volume shows the strong influence of The X-Files imagery on the artistic mind. In this introduction to this powerful collection of images, acclaimed writer William Gibson noted that The X-Files "is a disturbing and viscerally satisfying expression of where we've come from, where we are today, and all those places we simultaneously yearn and dread to go." Starling, beautiful, and thought-provoking, this unusual volume expands the creative vision of The X-Files , and of contemporary art itself. Reflecting our world in a uniquely haunting way, The X-Files has engendered a new look of mystery, conspiracy, phenomenon, and fear. These enigmatic, elusive images have had a profound and compelling impact on our visual reality, both feeding into and drawing from mainstream America's fascination with the subversive, the disowned, and the disillusioned. This innovative volume, a visual response to Chris Carter's dark, uneasy creation, collects the works of more than sixty cutting-edge artists. Representing a cross section of contemporary visual arts, these photographers, painters, scultptors, graphic designers, and digital media artists have produced works that reflect their personal interpretation of The X-Files : as a cultural phenomenon, as a new chapter in television history, as an engrossing cosmic conspiracy. Many pieces are accompanied by a statement from the artist, explaining the inspiration behind his or her contribution--ranging from an episode to a line of dialouge, form a particular incident to a theme within the entire series. Illustrated with video stills from the episodes, this volume shows the strong influence of The X-Files imagery on the artistic mind. In this introduction to this powerful collection of images, acclaimed writer William Gibson noted that The X-Files "is a disturbing and viscerally satisfying expression of where we've come from, where we are today, and all those places we simultaneously yearn and dread to go." Starling, beautiful, and thought-provoking, this unusual volume expands the creative vision of The X-Files , and of contemporary art itself. the absolute at largeWilliam Gibson Q: What do Canadian cities look like? A: They look the way American cities do on televisions. -- pamphlet addressed to draft-evaders, Toronto, 1967 Welcome to the New World (dis)Order. Welcome to the ambient dread and a certain slippery ecstasy, a sensation akin to constantly walking in ball-bearings. This is our "future," the one we didn't aticipate: call it Postmodernity. The giddy anxiety we feel today has little to do with the millennium (another Christian holiday, so to speak) and much more to do with the end of Modernity. Many of usremain creatures of the Modern, more (increasingly) are creatures of the Postmodern, but the majority are still a bit of both. We inhabit an unprecedentedly deep fault line of history; we are living amid changes so profound that we can only faintly apprehend them. Civilization-as-we-know-it is ending. Freud saw civilization, kultur, as being built upon a renunciation of primal urges. Civilized individuals exchanged some portion of the possibility of happiness for a measure of security. The cost of civilization, of Modernity, were suppression and regulation. In Postmodernity the swap reverses itself; we trade security for the scary and delirious possibilities of new happinesses, previously unthinkable gratifications. Midcentury America was the heyday and homeland of Modernity: the future was out there, and in the official version at least, it was all gain. We were taught, in effect, that there could be gains without losses; that the future, like happiness, was perfectible. Yet we lived in a climate of corrosive, technologically induced global fear: the fear of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) and nuclear winter. The mono-fear of the Cold War has gone now, re