Douglas Coupland, OC, writer, short-story writer, author, aesthetic musician (born 30 December 1961 in Baden-Söllingen, Germany).
Douglas Coupland, OC, storyteller, short-story author, essayist, aesthetic musician (birthed 30 December 1961 in Baden-Söllingen, Germany). A Police officer of the Order of Canada and also member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Douglas Coupland has actually distinguished himself internationally as an author, visual artist as well as graphic designer, and is commonly viewed as one of one of the most initial commentators on mass society of the late 20th and also the 21st century.
Early Life, Education And Learning and Fiction
Born on a Canadian NATO base, Douglas Coupland matured in Vancouver, where he went to the Emily Carr University of Art and also Layout (now the Emily Carr College of Art as well as Style). A 1988 article for Vancouver Magazine caused the writing of his initial book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991 ). Although the term had actually existed in the past, Coupland utilizes Generation X to describe the generation born in the late 1950s and the 1960s. The group is represented in the novel by Claire, Andy as well as Dag, a triad surrendered to a bleak future including lower assumptions of material wealth than coming before generations. Guide was an instant industrial success, and Coupland became an occasionally unwilling representative for his generation. The use of the term Generation X has since been taken on by the media, though it is usually utilized to describe those somewhat younger than the lead characters of Coupland’s novel.
In his second book, Hair shampoo Planet (1992 ), Coupland turns his attention to the next generation, “Worldwide Teenagers,” increased on computer systems as well as music videos. He returns to Generation X with his 3rd publication, Life after God (1994 ), a collection of short stories regarding faithless and helpless young people, which includes pictures by the writer. His unique Microserfs (1995) adheres to a team of young computer system programmers dissatisfied with their lives in huge corporate culture. Reaction to Coupland’s job has actually been blended. While some laud his skill with the vernacular of the day, others slam him for being as well limited in emphasis and for developing caricatures instead of personalities.
Several of Coupland’s succeeding books– Sweetheart in a Coma (1998 ), Miss Wyoming (2000 ), All Families Are Psychotic (2001 ), as well as Eleanor Rigby (2005)– concentrate extra on personalities, frequently in search of identity, mankind and also relationships. Coupland, nonetheless, remains to enjoy and also satirize the unbalanced, shallow and consumeristic lifestyle of modern The United States and Canada. The even more focused and also solemn Hey Nostradamus! (2003) complies with the long-term results of a senior high school carnage, narrated by a female sufferer, a male survivor and also his loved ones. Progressively, Coupland’s writing is adjusted for, or planned for, various other media, making use of the mixed innovations he so commonly makes the topic of his analysis. JPod (2006 ), which takes another look at as well as updates Microserfs’ world of company technology development, is written in blog site style: the message appears as one would certainly read it online. The story “Whatever’s Gone Green” was created especially to be made into a feature film of the same name.The Gum tissue Burglar (2007) includes an unique within an unique, highlighting the distance in between conventional story as well as the fragmented, multimedia globe its personalities, workers at Staples, populate. Generation A (2009 ), stylistically similar to Generation X, assesses the relevance of storytelling and finding ways of link in an electronic, typically estranging world. Coupland’s most recent novels are Player One (2010 ), which was longlisted for the Giller Prize, and also Worst. Individual. Ever. (2013 ).
Non-Fiction
Coupland is additionally a respected non-fiction author. Photographes from the Dead (1996) integrates essays and also fictional stories that think about modern society’s fixation with star death. His popular-culture study Lara’s Book: Lara Croft and also the Tomb Raider Phenomenon was published in 1998. City of Glass (2000) provides intimate verbal and also aesthetic snapshots of Coupland’s hometown, Vancouver. His Keepsake of Canada (2002) as well as Keepsake of Canada 2 (2004) incorporate perfect Canadian images, like squat beer containers, crinkling rinks and Canada geese, with Coupland’s succinct commentaries as well as individual representations on all points Canadian. In 2005, a movie docudrama, Memento of Canada, was adjusted from these works. As a keen viewer of the intersections of modern technology and also pop culture, Coupland was an all-natural selection to writer a bio of Marshall McLuhan, published in 2010, which was a finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 2011. Also in 2010, Coupland was welcomed to offer the Massey Lectures; his collection challenged the boundaries of the predicted type, as they were made up of segments adjusted from his unique Gamer One: What Is to Become of United States (2010 ), embeded in the lounge of a Toronto airport terminal during a worldwide catastrophe.
Aesthetic Art
In addition to his written work, Douglas Coupland is a well-known visual artist whose work has been exhibited throughout North America and also Europe. His interest in breaking down borders in between media, and also between fiction and also non-fiction, is evident in College Spirit (2002 ), a collaboration with French musician Pierre Huyghe. This work is a collection of images as well as passages from actual secondary school yearbooks, combined with the tale of Coupland’s fictional character, a student who died and whose ghost remains to haunt the institution’s halls. Terry (2005) incorporates Coupland’s relocating bio of Terry Fox with photographs of the runner and also family members souvenirs. A Vancouver memorial of Fox made by Coupland was revealed in 2011. Coupland has actually also created a memorial to the War of 1812 (2008) and Canoe Touchdown, a downtown Toronto park (in cooperation with design firm Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg) that integrates Coupland’s very own sculptures, and a national monument to firemens, unveiled in Ottawa in 2012. In Might 2014, the very first significant survey of Coupland’s job as an aesthetic musician, Douglas Coupland: almost everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything, opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery as well as subsequently took a trip to the Gallery of Contemporary Canadian Art and the Royal Ontario Gallery in Toronto.
Other Tasks
The variety of Coupland’s manufacturing is impressive, consisting of ventures into film, tv, and also style. In 2006, the movie Everything’s Gone Environment-friendly was released, a comedy directed by Paul Fox (it won an honor for finest Canadian attribute at the 2006 Vancouver International Movie Event) with a movie script created by Coupland, his initial. The 13-episode tv show jPod, based on a novel of the very same name and also with a teleplay by Coupland, premiered on the CBC in January 2008. A play, September 10 2001, was executed in the UK at the Stratford New Work Festival. In 2010, Coupland teamed up with Origins Canada on a collection of summer streetwear and both leather as well as non-leather devices.