Addressing the pivotal role played by speed in modern life – from art, architecture, and urbanism to graphics and design, to economics and the material culture of the eras of industry and information – Speed Limits presents a multifaceted view that is both a defence of speed and an implicit denunciation of its detrimental effect on contemporary life.

Along with the essays, the book includes an anthology of nineteenth- and twentieth-century statements on speed and slowness from writers such as Charles Dickens, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, J.G. Ballard, Italo Calvino, and Marshall McLuhan, among others. Dividing these two sections is a visual essay by Jeffrey T. Schnapp that draws images from the archives of the CCA and the Wolfsonian.

Edited by Jeffrey T. Schnapp
Essays by Timothy Alborn, Yve-Alain Bois, Edward Dimendberg, Maria Gough, Antonino Mastruzzo, Jeffrey L. Meikle, Pierre Niox, Marjorie Perloff, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Mark Seltzer, and Anthony Vidler
Forewords by Mirko Zardini and Cathy Leff
Graphic design by Tim Hossler

Co-published in 2009 with Skira and The Wolfsonian-Florida International University
Softcover, 320 pages

Related exhibition: Speed Limits