SHUMON BASAR

With the Republic of Slovenia declaring its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 Slovenia became an honourable member of the world of late capitalism, and in 2004 a member of the European Union. It would take too long to explain in detail why Slovenia became a successful member of the empire of late capitalism, but what can be said of architecture is that several young architects such as Spela Videcnik and Rok Oman of Ofis arhitekti became familiar with the blurring of the distinctions between art, fashion, high and low culture, design and politics, individualisation, and consumption. Not only Ofis, but other young architects oriented themselves to the West and decided early on in their careers to study architecture in post-Fordist countries like Great Britain, the USA, Holland and Finland, thus making the leap from a Communist welfare state into a late-capitalist state -with the help of their international aesthetics- easier and more promising for Slovenia. From that moment on, a new generation of architects paved the way for Slovenia to move into world capitalism. The work by Ofis compiled in this issue of 2G represents a good example of this new generation of architects from Eastern Europe.

Planet Earth needs a self-help book, and this is it.The future is happening to us far faster than we thought it would and this book explains why.Fifty years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture The Medium is the Massage, Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that's redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the 'extreme present'.The Age of Earthquakes is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and 'mindsource' images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly's striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It's like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read.Welcome to The Age of Earthquakes, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn't just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it's also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.