ABSTRACT
Brand’s next, more far-reaching response was to found a combination of magazine and mail order catalog, known as the Whole Earth Catalog, promising “access to tools” to help produce alternative forms of being and living (Turner 71). The catalog was crucial for the extraordinary coming together of acid and silicon in Northern California that would result in the personal computer revolution and lay the ground for our current hypertechnologized society. In 2005, nearly 40 years after Brand had his LSD epiphany, Google released Google Earth, a program enabling the user to view satellite images of almost any part of the earth. The default view when the program is started shows an image of the earth suspended in space that is similar to the photograph of the earth taken from the moon used by Brand for the cover of the Whole Earth Catalogs. The pictures of the whole earth taken up by Brand are credited with helping to kick-start the ecological movement, by presenting an irresistible image of Earth as a fragile, beautiful planet.
