Title: Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY
edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
foreword by William Gibson
published by W.W. Norton, 400 pp., $27.95
publication date: July 23, 2001 (US); Sept. 19, 2001 (UK)
"This book is one start toward a different sort of history.... I recommend this book to you with an earnestness that I have seldom felt for any collection of historic texts. This is, in large part, where the bodies are buried. Assembled in this way, in such close proximity, these visions give off strange sparks." - from the foreword by William Gibson
MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY presents the untold history behind the interfaces, links, and interactivity we all take for granted today. This groundbreaking work traces a fertile and fascinating series of collaborations between the arts and the sciences, going back to the years just after World War II -- and even further, to composer Richard Wagner, whose ideas about the immersive nature of music theater foreshadowed the experience of virtual reality.
Among the essential articles gathered in the book are the Futurists' 1916 manifesto on cinema, which declared that the new medium would unite all media and replace the book; Vannevar Bush's 1945 Atlantic Monthly essay that leads directly to the hyperlinks in today's multimedia; J.C.R. Licklider's groundbreaking idea in 1960 that people and computers could collaborate in creative work; Nam June Paik's 1984 essay proposing that satellite technology would encourage a global information art; Tim Berners-Lee's 1989 proposal for a document-sharing network, which became the basis of the World Wide Web; and William Gibson's discussion of how he came up with the word "cyberspace." With an insightful introduction to the volume and critical commentaries on each article, editors Randall Packer and Ken Jordan lead us through the groundbreaking developments of the multimedia story.
The book publication completes a unique hybrid publication project that joins W.W. Norton with Intel Corporation's ArtMuseum.net, to present an untold history of multimedia. The book and the Web site, which was launched in June, 2000, are meant to work in tandem. On-line, MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY is a dynamic, growing resource featuring hyperlinked texts and a wealth of multimedia documentation. Please visit the site at http://www.artmuseum.net.
From the early reviews:
"The best guide yet on a subject of central importance to anyone interested in the future of media, and the growing marriage between art and science....The collection is historically significant, given that nobody has ever woven together the different threads, thoughts and impulses that become multimedia, a new form both of media and culture.... The book flows skillfully from one idea to the next, each section building on the one that preceded it." - Jon Katz, Slashdot
"In the Norton Anthology tradition, Packer and Jordan bring together seminal contributions that artists and scientists have made to the field of computer-human interaction... An evocative whirlwind tour through 100 years of work... Excellent..." - S. Joy Mountford, Wired
"[MULTIMEDIA is] a key source book in the field of art, science and technology. This book is excellent in all respects." - Annick Bureaud, Leonardo Digital Reviews
"Readers interested in the history of multimedia should be enthralled by this collection of hard-to-find essays.... A remarkable blending of past and present, these essays remind us that today's wondrous inventions didn't just spring into existence out of nothingness." - Booklist
MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY
Table of Contents
Foreword by William Gibson
Overture by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
I. Integration 1. Richard Wagner, "Outlines of the Artwork of the Future"
2. F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Corra, Emilio Settimelli, Arnaldo Ginna, Giacomo Balla, Remo Chiti, ³The Futurist Cinema²
3. László Moholy-Nagy, ³Theater, Circus, Variety²
4. Richard Higgins, ³Intermedia²
5. Billy Klüver, ³The Great Northeastern Power Failure²
6. Nam June Paik, ³Cybernated Art² and ³Art and Satellite²
II. Interactivity 7. Norbert Wiener, ³Cybernetics in History²
8. J.C.R. Licklider, ³Man-Computer Symbiosis²
9. Douglas Engelbart, ³Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework²
10. John Cage, ³Diary: Audience 1966²
11. Roy Ascott, ³Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision²
12. Myron Krueger, ³Responsive Environments²
13. Alan Kay, ³User Interface: A Personal View²
III. Hypermedia 14. Vannevar Bush, ³As We May Think²
15. Ted Nelson, excerpt from Computer Lib/Dream Machines
16. Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, ³Personal Dynamic Media²
17. Marc Canter, ³The New Workstation: CD ROM Authoring Systems²
18. Tim Berners-Lee, ³Information Management: A Proposal²
19. George Landow and Paul Delany, ³Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art²
IV. Immersion 20. Morton Heilig, ³The Cinema of the Future²
21. Ivan Sutherland, ³The Ultimate Display²
22. Scott Fisher, ³Virtual Interface Environments²
23. William Gibson, ³Academy Leader²
24. Marcos Novak, ³Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace²
25. Daniel Sandin, Thomas DeFanti, and Carolina Cruz-Neira, ³A Room with a View²
V. Narrativity 26. William Burroughs, ³The Future of the Novel²
27. Allan Kaprow, ³Untitled Guidelines for Happenings²
28. Bill Viola, ³Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?²
29. Lynn Hershman, ³The Fantasy Beyond Control²
30. Roy Ascott, ³Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?"
31. Pavel Curtis, ³Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities²
32. Pierre Lévy, ³The Art and Architecture of Cyberspace²