Climatic Media: Transpacific Experiments in Atmospheric Control

by Yuriko Furuhata

Overview

In Climatic Media, Yuriko Furuhata traces climate engineering from the early twentieth century to the present, emphasizing the legacies of Japan’s empire building and its Cold War alliance with the United States. Furuhata boldly expands the scope of media studies to consider technologies that chemically “condition” Earth’s atmosphere and socially “condition” the conduct of people, focusing on the attempts to monitor and modify indoor and outdoor atmospheres by Japanese scientists, technicians, architects, and artists in conjunction with their American counterparts. She charts the geopolitical contexts of what she calls climatic media by examining a range of technologies such as cloud seeding and artificial snowflakes, digital computing used for weather forecasting and weather control, cybernetics for urban planning and policing, Nakaya Fujiko’s fog sculpture, and the architectural experiments of Tange Lab and the Metabolists, who sought to design climate-controlled capsule housing and domed cities. Furuhata’s transpacific analysis offers a novel take on the elemental conditions of media and climate change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478017806
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	03/25/2022
Series:	Elements
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Yuriko Furuhata is Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar of Cinema and Media History in the Department of East Asian Studies at McGill Universityand author of Cinema of Actuality: Japanese Avant-Garde Filmmaking in the Season of Image Politics, also published by Duke UniversityPress.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction  1
1. Outdoor Weather: Artificial Fog and Weather Control  25
2. Indoor Weather: Air-Conditioning and Future Forecasting  48
3. To the Greenhouse: Weatherproof Architecture as Climatic Media  80
4. Spaceship Earth: Plastics and the Ecological Dilemma of Metabolist Architecture  104
5. Cloud Control: Tear Gas, Cybernetics, and Networked Surveillance  133
Conclusion: Explicating the Backgrounds  166
Notes  177
Bibliography  215
Index  237

Editorial Reviews

Climatic Media is a groundbreaking project that will have far-reaching resonances and implications across the humanities and social sciences. Given its critical rigor, deeply engaging analysis, and the wide-ranging readership it forges, Climatic Media is no doubt one of the most exciting books to mark this new decade. This is a field-changing work and a fascinating and extremely rewarding read.”—Weihong Bao, author of, Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915–1945

“Yuriko Furuhata’s Climatic Media is a timely, vital, and urgent book. At a moment of extreme disaster speculation and technophilic ambitions to re-engineer both ourselves and our planet’s climate, this book offers both critique and inspiration. Tracing an alternative Japanese genealogy of climate control, Furuhata convincingly demonstrates how conditioning the climate and conditioning ourselves are joint projects. In exposing the militarized, imperial, and contested epistemologies that construct our contemporary ideas of ecology, she also opens a route by which we might envision and design alternative forms of environmental management, forms that might be more equitable, noncolonial, and diverse.”—Orit Halpern, author of, Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945

“I came away with a newfound appreciation for the hidden nature of atmospheric management that we see but do not see every day. . . . The book is itself a fascinating contribution to science and technology studies, history of science and technology, and cultural and media theory literature, and offers a new way of imagining Japanese history.”—Fiona C. Williamson, H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews

“Climatic Media sits at the intersection of media studies and the history of science and technology. Furuhata taps into a current trend by looking at climate as media. Highly Recommended.”—P. L. Kantor, Choice

“[Climatic Media] is an important contribution to our understanding of many aspects of Japanese epistemic communities, the US-Japan alliance, and our current predicament of global warming and potential, man-made solutions. Hopefully, it will help our responses become more thoughtful.”—Daniel P. Aldrich, Pacific Affairs

“It is the intersection of histories of technology, environmental mediation, and their geopolitical stakes that makes Furuhata’s book so interesting. It taps into such a crucial topic of discussion that it is sure to be widely read and referenced in and outside media studies.”—Jussi Parikka, Leonardo

“[Furuhata] makes a remarkable contribution to the histories of climate in East Asia —where architecture, weather, and digital computing are reinforced as mutually interdependent discourses that continue to evolve and transform how we think about climate control.”—Jennifer Ferng, Leonardo

“Those interested in Japanese media studies, theories of elemental/environmental media, and/or transpacific Cold War history will find much to celebrate in Climatic Media. . . . It is an important book that points the way toward a more critically minded mode of environmental scholarship that demonstrates the potentials of adopting a transpacific approach to the tracing of (often surprising) media genealogies.”—Jon L. Pitt, Journal of Asian Studies

“Climatic Media marvels in its connections. . . . Furuhata’s bid to define climatic media and to establish the ecological and transpacific geopolitical feedback loops that ‘undergird atmospheric control as forms of air conditioning and social conditioning’ becomes a refreshing and necessary endeavor.”—Laura Beltz Imaoka, Film Quarterly

“A timely and urgent work in our doom-laden age of climate change, [Climatic Media] encompasses not only the air-conditioning of discrete spaces and rooms but also that of climate-controlled shelters and atmospheric control on a geographic scale. . . . With ample original materials and thorough research, particularly the transpacific historical analysis, it gives several clear commentaries on the continuity of science-based technology between the Japanese imperial era and the postwar context.”—Togo Tsukahara, Technology and Culture

“An exhilarating read.  . . . Climatic Media makes an important contribution to the history of science and technology, environmental media, and architecture, and it attunes us to transpacific exchanges and connections that together shape our current media and climate condition.”—Weixian Pan, Information & Culture

"As a work of media studies scholarship, Furuhata’s expansion of the concept of media is exciting and generative. . . . Furuhata presents an elegant and careful study of climatic media that illuminates how practices of conditioning climates are also practices of conditioning people."—Jennifer Rhee, ISLE

From the Publisher

Climatic Media sits at the intersection of media studies and the history of science and technology. Furuhata taps into a current trend by looking at climate as media. Highly Recommended.

Choice - P. L. Kantor

Those interested in Japanese media studies, theories of elemental/environmental media, and/or transpacific Cold War history will find much to celebrate in Climatic Media. . . . It is an important book that points the way toward a more critically minded mode of environmental scholarship that demonstrates the potentials of adopting a transpacific approach to the tracing of (often surprising) media genealogies.

Journal of Asian Studies - Jon L. Pitt

Climatic Media marvels in its connections. . . . Furuhata’s bid to define climatic media and to establish the ecological and transpacific geopolitical feedback loops that ‘undergird atmospheric control as forms of air conditioning and social conditioning’ becomes a refreshing and necessary endeavor.

Film Quarterly - Laura Beltz Imaoka

A timely and urgent work in our doom-laden age of climate change, [Climatic Media] encompasses not only the air-conditioning of discrete spaces and rooms but also that of climate-controlled shelters and atmospheric control on a geographic scale. . . . With ample original materials and thorough research, particularly the transpacific historical analysis, it gives several clear commentaries on the continuity of science-based technology between the Japanese imperial era and the postwar context.

Technology and Culture - Togo Tsukahara

An exhilarating read.  . . . Climatic Media makes an important contribution to the history of science and technology, environmental media, and architecture, and it attunes us to transpacific exchanges and connections that together shape our current media and climate condition.

Information & Culture - Weixian Pan

[Furuhata] makes a remarkable contribution to the histories of climate in East Asia —where architecture, weather, and digital computing are reinforced as mutually interdependent discourses that continue to evolve and transform how we think about climate control.

Leonardo - Jennifer Ferng

"As a work of media studies scholarship, Furuhata’s expansion of the concept of media is exciting and generative. . . . Furuhata presents an elegant and careful study of climatic media that illuminates how practices of conditioning climates are also practices of conditioning people."

ISLE - Jennifer Rhee

I came away with a newfound appreciation for the hidden nature of atmospheric management that we see but do not see every day. . . . The book is itself a fascinating contribution to science and technology studies, history of science and technology, and cultural and media theory literature, and offers a new way of imagining Japanese history.

H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews - Fiona C. Williamson

It is the intersection of histories of technology, environmental mediation, and their geopolitical stakes that makes Furuhata’s book so interesting. It taps into such a crucial topic of discussion that it is sure to be widely read and referenced in and outside media studies.

Leonardo - Jussi Parikka

[Climatic Media] is an important contribution to our understanding of many aspects of Japanese epistemic communities, the US-Japan alliance, and our current predicament of global warming and potential, man-made solutions. Hopefully, it will help our responses become more thoughtful.

Pacific Affairs - Daniel P. Aldrich

Climatic Media is a groundbreaking project that will have far-reaching resonances and implications across the humanities and social sciences. Given its critical rigor, deeply engaging analysis, and the wide-ranging readership it forges, Climatic Media is no doubt one of the most exciting books to mark this new decade. This is a field-changing work and a fascinating and extremely rewarding read.

Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915–1945 - Weihong Bao

Yuriko Furuhata’s Climatic Media is a timely, vital, and urgent book. At a moment of extreme disaster speculation and technophilic ambitions to re-engineer both ourselves and our planet’s climate, this book offers both critique and inspiration. Tracing an alternative Japanese genealogy of climate control, Furuhata convincingly demonstrates how conditioning the climate and conditioning ourselves are joint projects. In exposing the militarized, imperial, and contested epistemologies that construct our contemporary ideas of ecology, she also opens a route by which we might envision and design alternative forms of environmental management, forms that might be more equitable, noncolonial, and diverse.

Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945 - Orit Halpern