The FourDimensional Human, Laurence Scott
The FourDimensional Human, Laurence Scott
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The Four-Dimensional Human
Ways of Being in the Digital World

Author: Laurence Scott

Narrator: Matthew Brenher

Unabridged: 9 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/09/2016

Synopsis

You are a four-dimensional human.Each of us exists in three-dimensional physical space. But, as a constellation of everyday digital phenomena rewires our lives, we are increasingly coaxed from the containment of our predigital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information, and global connection.Our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. But what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? How do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? What new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows, and anxieties of a networked world? And how do we live in public with these recoded private lives?Laurence Scott―hailed as a "New Generation Thinker" by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC―shows how this four-dimensional life is dramatically changing us by redefining our social lives and extending the limits of our presence in the world. Blending tech philosophy with insights on everything from Seinfeld to the fall of Gaddafi, Scott stands with a rising generation of social critics hoping to understand our new reality. His virtuosic debut is a revelatory and original exploration of life in the digital age.

About Laurence Scott

Laurence Scott’s essays and criticism have appeared in the Guardian, the Financial Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. A lecturer in English and creative writing, he lives in London.

About Matthew Brenher

Matthew Brenher, originally from London, now lives in Los Angeles. His theatrical background includes performances in no fewer than twenty Shakespearean productions, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo in Romeo & Juliet, and the title role in Henry V. In Los Angeles, he played Claudius in Hamlet, Cassio in Othello, Antony in Antony & Cleopatra, Antipholous of Syracuse in Comedy of Errors, and Orsino in Twelfth Night. Other theater includes: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Trigorin in The Seagull, Alistair in Shaw’s The Millionairess, Jerry in Pinter’s Betrayal, the title role in Dracula, and George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which he was awarded best performance by a lead actor/drama by Stage Scene LA 2009–2010. He’s performed in new plays, most recently in A Bitter Fruit for Palestine, Vulcan in Love’s Mistress at the famous Globe theater in London, and Petko in an acclaimed production of The Mapletree Game. On television, he played “Mad” Marcus for six months in the now defunct British soap Brookside. Other television includes: Rules of Engagement, Bodyguards, The Blind Date, Starhunter, The Grid, Eastenders, and Nostradamus. Films include Execution, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Stay Shy, and The Boy Who would Be King. He works in commercials and industrials and is an accomplished voice-over artist.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Blair

This is a difficult book to write about and very hard to describe. It's basically a study of how 'networked life', ie 24/7 connection to the internet and social media and the ability to constantly communicate across almost all physical borders, has transformed the human experience, and what that mea......more

Goodreads review by Pete

The introduction alone is worth the price of admission. I feel like sometimes he gets a little carried away in his grand and super verbose similes and references, but then he'll turn around and slap you with beautiful insights. It's such a pleasure to read about our modern, connected lives without i......more

Quotes

“Here at last is a portrait in full of our digitally extended, digitally entwined selves.” Nicholas Carr, Pulitzer Prize finalist

“Beyond the lovely precision of its diction and companionable voice, [The Four Dimensional Human] is notable for its courage to write from inside the ambiguities and confusions of online life, to resist the easy pleasures of summary judgement.” New Statesman

“Adds immeasurably to the burgeoning literature on what social media does to our innermost lives, relationships, and stance towards the world. [Scott] doesn’t travel on main roads—the familiar worries about technology—but rather on hidden byways marked by imagination and metaphor, where data cannot follow.” Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Scott, an essayist and critic, offers a rich phenomenology of living in the digital age and its radical reshaping of fundamental human experiences…Scott’s sharp eye for irony and great wit make this debut a lively contribution to the conversation about the effects of the Internet on society.” Publishers Weekly

“Clever, allusive, with a capacious sense of humor, the book sizzles with intelligence. Scott mixes observations of deep profundity and eloquence with some head-scratching notions about digital life.” New York Times Book Review

Awards

  • Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction Shortlist
  • RSL Jerwood Award for Nonfiction
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