Patrick Keiller's films include the celebrated London (1994), Robinson in Space (1997), The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000), and Robinson in Ruins (2010). He has devised large-scale installations including Londres, Bombay (Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, 2006) and The Robinson Institute (Tate Britain, London, 2012), the latter accompanied by a book The Possibility of Life's Survival on the Planet. He was a Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art, London (2002-11), and has taught in schools of art and architecture since 1974.

An enigmatic, intermittently brilliant collection of essays about the built landscape of Britain and how it has changed in the last 30 years.