Earthworks (novel)
Encyclopedia
Earthworks is a 1965 dystopia
n science fiction
novel by prolific British science fiction
author Brian Aldiss
.
, a class of wealthy and powerful "Farmers" exploit a rural prison
labor population and hunt down subversive "Travellers" who have broken free of social controls. The novel is considered influential as both "Travellers" and the idea of the Earthwork have become part of public life in Britain.
took a copy of Earthworks with him on a trip to the Passaic River
in New Jersey (where he created The Monuments of Passaic, 1967). He reused the title to describe some of his works, based on natural materials like earth and rocks, and infused with his ideas about entropy and environmental catastrophe. Smithson went on to become the foremost figure in Land Art
.
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by prolific British science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
.
Plot introduction
The novel is set in a world of environmental catastrophe and extreme socio-economic inequality. Outside crowded cities controlled by a police statePolice state
A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...
, a class of wealthy and powerful "Farmers" exploit a rural prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
labor population and hunt down subversive "Travellers" who have broken free of social controls. The novel is considered influential as both "Travellers" and the idea of the Earthwork have become part of public life in Britain.
Earthworks and Land Art
In 1967, the artist Robert SmithsonRobert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
took a copy of Earthworks with him on a trip to the Passaic River
Passaic River
The Passaic River is a mature surface river, approximately 80 mi long, in northern New Jersey in the United States. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey,...
in New Jersey (where he created The Monuments of Passaic, 1967). He reused the title to describe some of his works, based on natural materials like earth and rocks, and infused with his ideas about entropy and environmental catastrophe. Smithson went on to become the foremost figure in Land Art
Land art
Land art, Earthworks , or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked...
.