Tokyo Vertigo

by Stephen Barber

From the narrow alleyways of the Golden Gai to the flashing ads and jumbotrons of the Shibuya street crossings to the skyscrapers of Shinjuku and the cartoon billboards of the Akiba, Tokyo is an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1840680369
• ISBN13: 9781840680362
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Creation Books
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.3" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

extraordinary evocation of the extremes of Tokyo

Tokyo Vertigo is part travel book, part hallucination. Stephen Barber takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the myriad districts of contemporary Tokyo, from the neon nightscape of Shinjuku to the artificial Daiba Island in Tokyo Bay, and reinvents the city as he goes along, evoking its unique ferment of sex, consumerism, and rampant visual imagery. Free of the tired old cliches about Japanese culture (no Pokemon, no ikebana), Tokyo Vertigo captures the energy and extremity of Tokyo now, recognising that the city, even more than the book, is the effect of constant and delirious reinvention. Along with Roland Barthes's The Empire of Signs and Chris Marker's film Sunless, this is one of the few truly original and essential meditations on Tokyo by a Western visitor.