Book excerpt: American painter Edward Hopper once said, "Maybe I am not very human--what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house." Indeed, Hopper's canvases delineate a new physics of Modern public space, in which the zones between people are not charged with responsiveness (affection, animosity, attraction) but with absolute indifference. Whether alone or grouped, Hopper's solitary figures bespeak Modern metropolitan conditions with a clarity that is deepened by his very specific ability to capture architecture, interior space and, of course, light. The legacy of this vision, coupled with Hopper's unique vocabulary, can be seen in the work of numerous artists today, who are also featured here. Among them are Ed Ruscha, Jim Jarmusch, Todd Haynes, Richard Prince, Rachel Whiteread, Jeff Wall, Markus Schinwald, Philip Lorca diCorcia, David Claerbout, Mark Lewis and Tim Eitel.