The Designed Self

What can contemporary psychoanalysis bring to the understanding of Generation X, a cohort for whom the trivialization of a dizzying array of possible experiences teamed with the pressure to lead spectacular lives often leads to diffuse feelings of confusion, depression, and disorientation. The Designed Self chronicles Strenger's therapeutic encounters with five extraordinarily gifted young adults for whom the ideal of authenticity long associated with the Baby-Boom generation was supplanted by the need to experiment endlessly with the self. Perpetual self-experimentation, constantly reinforced by the media, came to encompass everything from career choice, to hair color, to body shape, to gender identity. In compelling clinical stories, Strenger introduces us to patients for whom the project of shaping the self had become a cultural imperative no less than an expression of individuality. At once insightful and cautionary, The Designed Self investigates how psychoanalysis must change if it is to claim cultural relevance and therapeutic effectiveness in The Age of the Designed Self.

A wide-ranging and challenging exploration of design and how it engages with the self The field of design has radically expanded. As a practice, design is no longer limited to the world of material objects but rather extends from carefully crafted individual styles and online identities to the surrounding galaxies of personal devices, new materials, interfaces, networks, systems, infrastructures, data, chemicals, organisms, and genetic codes. Superhumanity seeks to explore and challenge our understanding of “design” by engaging with and departing from the concept of the “self.” This volume brings together more than fifty essays by leading scientists, artists, architects, designers, philosophers, historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, originally disseminated online via e-flux Architecture between September 2016 and February 2017 on the invitation of the Third Istanbul Design Biennial. Probing the idea that we are and always have been continuously reshaped by the artifacts we shape, this book asks: Who designed the lives we live today? What are the forms of life we inhabit, and what new forms are currently being designed? Where are the sites, and what are the techniques, to design others? This vital and far-reaching collection of essays and images seeks to explore and reflect on the ways in which both the concept and practice of design are operative well beyond tangible objects, expanding into the depths of self and forms of life. Contributors: Zeynep Çelik Alexander, Lucia Allais, Shumon Basar, Ruha Benjamin, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Daniel Birnbaum, Ina Blom, Benjamin H. Bratton, Giuliana Bruno, Tony Chakar, Mark Cousins, Simon Denny, Keller Easterling, Hu Fang, Rubén Gallo, Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Rupali Gupte, Andrew Herscher, Tom Holert, Brooke Holmes, Francesca Hughes, Andrés Jaque, Lydia Kallipoliti, Thomas Keenan, Sylvia Lavin, Yongwoo Lee, Lesley Lokko, MAP Office, Chus Martínez, Ingo Niermann, Ahmet Ögüt, Trevor Paglen, Spyros Papapetros, Raqs Media Collective, Juliane Rebentisch, Sophia Roosth, Felicity D. Scott, Jack Self, Prasad Shetty, Hito Steyerl, Kali Stull, Pelin Tan, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Paulo Tavares, Stephan Trüby, Etienne Turpin, Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Eyal Weizman, Mabel O. Wilson, Brian Kuan Wood, Liam Young, and Arseny Zhilyaev.

Our identities used to be shaped by our communities, families, and friends, but in the online era we inhabit today, we are expected to write our own success stories on social media platforms. We design our own identity, create our own image, and present ourselves in the way we want to be seen. The various imaginative methods and ideas for upgrading oneself are seen as new forms of creativity, or ?Self-Design?. Authored by designer, producer, and Image Society founder Mieke Gerritzen, ?Help Your Self? is an inspirational book for getting started with designing your perfect self. In addition, it offers reflections on the self-help industry as a relatively new phenomenon.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Build your home the 'green' way to reduce running costs, be more self-sufficient and create a more comfortable home. Whether you want a turf roof, solar-powered hot water, or a super-insulated house, this book demonstrates that green is the way forward. Written by award-winning architect Jon Broome, The Green Self-Build Book provides an accessible overview of the different methods of sustainable and eco-friendly construction techniques. Covering the essential elements of design and the self-build process, this practical book includes information on sustainable foundations, floor finishes and insulation. Jon also shares insights on how to build for comfort and health. Inspiring case studies of green building projects using earth, straw, steel and timber are also included. Packed with attractive colour photos throughout, this is an essential resource for anyone who is planning a self-build project or involved in housing.

The Created Self takes readers to as-yet-unexplored regions in the modern psyche's preoccupation with self-invention.

More books are being published than ever with about one million per year in the United States alone. More than half of those are published by self-publishers and small presses. As a self-publishing author, you are walking boldly into that competitive environment, but you need your book to stand out from the rest. The last thing you need is a generic book cover that looks like all the other self-published and small press books out there. But book covers are costly, some running into hundreds or thousands of dollars. You have a choice between accepting the generic cover design your self-publishing company offers or spend hundreds of dollars for something better. This book provides another option. Using graphic design software that is both high quality and free to you, this book will teach you techniques that you can use to design your own book cover. These techniques are demonstrated using more than 200 full color images to help you get past the learning curve so that you can design your own book covers and avoid the curse of the generic book cover. This book discusses both fiction and non-fiction covers. It explains how to create and use a template for placing text and graphics on the cover. You will learn about image placement, interesting things you can do with text and how to incorporate hand drawn graphics into the cover. You will learn how to generate a barcode for the back cover. As an added feature, this book includes a section on using three dimensional rendering software for book cover design.

The body can self heal by its very design, and you can design a program that will enable the body to do the very thing it was made to do--heal itself.

Dissatisfied with the explanations of the origins of the universe provided by both hard science and philosophy, this book proposes a new meeting ground on the subject. By this account, western scientists have reduced all forces working in the universe to four basics—gravity, electromagnetism, and weak and strong interactions. Singh theorizes that the evolution of all things can be said to occur when oneness seeks freedom or "disentanglement" from these forces.