Planet B

Gwenola Wagon

Illustrated book, 320 pages

2022

Planet B is an investigation to understand the emergence of an extraordinary and limitless commercial empire. An essay that mixes research and speculation to apprehend a monster in full expansion. The company referred by the letter ∀ is none other than Amazon, founded and led by Jeff Bezos, who is recognized as B.

B runs a digital company called "∀".

∀ is on its way to acquiring a monopoly of sales on a global scale. It is a total company. Alongside its sales activity, as if this omni-global business were just a cover, ∀ revives the fantasies of Nasa in the 1970s: building colonies in space. Until a few years ago, ∀ space projects were unknown to the public and not widely publicized. And B could see himself piloting the Enterprise, the spaceship from the Star Trek series.

B in 1995, presenting the new ∀ website in his garage. Drawing : Gwenola Wagon
Picker at ∀. Design by Gwenola Wagon
Cover of the book Planet B, editions 369, 2022.
Summary of Planet B, editions 369, 2022.
W is the founder of the supermarket chain W whose principles of discount and low prices influenced B. Following a bet won on the growth of his turnover, W performs a Polynesian dance demonstration in front of Wall Street on March 15th 1984.
B celebrates with his team the launch and landing of the New Shepard rocket.

Press

Régine Debatty, Planet B. How to turn the Earth into a launchpad for space rockets, We Make Money Not Art, December 14th, 2022.

2022, Isabelle Louviot, Ère conditionnée, Planète ꓭ, https://suruneilejemporterais.fr/ere-conditionnee/

Diffusion

This book is published in the collection essays, 369 edition co-edited by Jérôme Delormas and Clémence Seurat. To be published on September 9, 2022.

Credits

Concept, text, drawings : Gwenola Wagon

Editing : Clémence Seurat

Correction : Nathalie David

Graphic design : Nuno da Luz

Typefaces : Standard, Bryce Wilner (2019), licensed under SIL Open Font License 1.1 Bookerly and Ember Condensed, Dalton Maag (2020), licensed under ∀

Papers : Holmen Book 70g/m2, Invercote G 270g/m2

Printing : Tallinna Raamatutrükikoja OÜ

Distribution : Hobo Diffusion

Thanks to Pierre Cassou-Noguès, Yves Citton, Nuno da Luz, Stéphane Degoutin, Jérôme Delormas, Sarah Garcin, Marie Lechner and Clémence Seurat. The Wikimedia community and the authors who share their work.

This work was supported by the EUR ArTeC and by the ANR under the program "Investissement d'avenir" (ANR-17- EURE-0008). With the participation of the Theory Experimentation Arts Media and Design Laboratory TEAMeD / AIAC - EA 4010 of the University of Paris 8.

Legal deposit: August 2022 ISBN: 978-2-490148-10-3

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)