The empire of non-sense

Translated into English for the first time, Jacques Ellul's ground-breaking Empire of Non-Sense analyses the relation between technology, art, rationality and human freedom. Many modern artists and architects continue to imagine and build the world technologically. Their beliefs remain firmly rooted in their assumption that the liberating forces of technology freed them from previous artistic traditions while making available vast means of production and a plethora of materials. Ellul examines this process in modern art from the beginning of the 20th century where the sense of art - its meaning and embodiments - is reduced to non-sense.