Terra Antarctica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent

by William L. Fox

Overview

How does the human mind transform space into place, or land into landscape? For more than three decades, William L. Fox has looked at empty landscapes and the role of the arts to investigate the way humans make sense of space. In Terra Antarctica, Fox continues this line of inquiry as he travels to the Antarctic, the “largest and most extreme desert on earth.” This contemporary travel narrative interweaves artistic, cartographic, and scientific images with anecdotes from the author's three-month journey in the Antarctic to create an absorbing and readable narrative of the remote continent. Through its images, history, and firsthand experiences—snowmobile trips through whiteouts and his icy solo hikes past the edge of the mapped world—Fox brings to life a place that few have seen and offers us a look into both the nature of landscape and ourselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595341006
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	543 KB

About the Author

William L. Fox is the author of Aeriality: On the World from Above and numerous other books. He received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation to work on Terra Antarctica. He is the founding director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Editorial Reviews

The environment of Antarctica, ‘the largest and most extreme desert on Earth,” is so foreign to our visual expectations that we are almost unable to perceive it. For Fox, who studies the ways in which humans respond to such vast, empty spaces, it’s the ideal location for examining the connection between cognition and extreme landscapes.”— Publisher’s Weekly

“Thoughtful and enjoyable on many fronts, Fox’s uniquely fashioned chronicle of Antarctica brings into sharper focus the crucial symbiosis between art and science.” — Donna Seaman, Booklist“Through his own experiences on the world’s most extreme continent, as well as through historical, cartographic, scientific, and artistic inquiry, Fox explores how we define Antarctica and in turn learn something about ourselves.”— Orion

“For once the adspeak cliché is appropriate: if you read only one book about Antarctica, you won’t go wrong choosing this one.” — Books in Heat

“Exploring Antarctica—an otherworldly experience—is like exploring another planet. Fox captures this essence in his writing.” — Jerald Winakur, San Antonio Express-News

From the Publisher