Radio Benjamin by Walter Benjamin
Contributed by Love Lagerkvist on Feb 21st, 2017. Artwork published in
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Philosopher and critical theorist Walter Benjamin is widely known for his works on culture and technology. Radio Benjamin gathers material from a series of radio shows he aired from 1927 to 1933. It covers the surviving transcripts along with radio-related essays into one comprehensive, beautiful volume edited by Lecia Rosenthal and translated by Jonathan Lutes with additional help from Lisa Harries Schumann and Diana Reese.
Isaac Tobin’s cover explores the idea of the radio wave, distorting the all lowercase title set in a Plantin, first cut during the 1910s. To quote Verso Books’ art director, Andy Pressman:
Don’t think I need to say much about it — though if anything it’s brighter, and more optically *heard*, in person.
