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Texte : Preface by Georges Charpak 75 black and white photographs 33,50 € ISBN : 2-85107-205-6, diffused by EDP Sciences |
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We are barely emerging from a time where centuries of equilubrium have been disrupted, by science, by philosophy, by politics. Planet Earth has become a brazier, sending up almost as much combustible heat as the moment of the big bang : radioactive bodies, dead star dust, the elements that gave birth to the planet 5 billion years ago. The human race is such a voracious consumer of energy, that they will exhaust their supply in less than a couple centuries, fossil fuels that took millions of years to accumulate. Our landscapes give evidence to this metamorphic time we live in. It is a legitimate urge to understand and put into effect the gains won by science. An urge easily observed in the unrestrained flow of elaborate technologies being produced by endless laboratories and factories today. They are sometimes beautiful, with the majesty of cathedrals, inspired by ideas, theories, calculations, they project into reality objects that take one's breath away by the audacity and grace of their form. One is seduced with emotion when witnessing liquid steel in fusion, the minute lacework of airplane machinery, the fantastical interlacing of pipes in a refinery. Antoine Gonin is the attentive and dazzling champion of industrial landscape that he renders strange thanks to his pointed graphism and perfect technique. It’s thanks to him that we see our own trouble alongside a fascinating future. Gonin makes a subtle if shockingly acute and convincing elegy. Georges Charpak Nobel Physics Prize 1992
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