The first book to address the true history of computer-based multimedia. Web sites, CD-ROMs, video games, interactive
television, virtual reality, touch-screen kiosks, 3D architecture design programs . . . these and other forms of
computer-based multimedia will be as important to the twenty-first century as film and television were to the twentieth.
But what is multimedia, where did it come from, and how does it work? Multimedia presents the fascinating dialogue
between the arts and sciences over the last half-century that made today's multimedia possible. Scientists like
Vannevar Bush, Douglas Englebart, Norbert Wiener; artists like John Cage, Nam June Paik, and William Gibson --
their groundbreaking visions are brought together here for the first time, given historical context, and embedded
in a clear explanation of the core concepts behind multimedia. Multimedia will be required reading for anyone who
has built a Web site, studied computer graphics, or wondered at the rapid birth and evolution of the new media
now changing every aspect of our lives. Introduction by William Gibson.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Overture
I Integration
1 Outlines of the Artwork of the Future
2 The Futurist Cinema
3 Theater, Circus, Variety
4 Intermedia
5 The Great Northeastern Power Failure
6 "Cybernated Art" and "Art and Satellite"
II Interactivity
7 Cybernetics in History
8 Man-Computer Symbiosis
9 Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework
10 Diary: Audience 1966
11 Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision
12 Responsive Environments
13 User Interface: A Personal View
III Hypermedia
14 As We May Think
15 Excerpt from Computer Lib/Dream Machines
16 Personal Dynamic Media
17 The New Workstation: CD ROM Authoring Systems
18 Information Management: A Proposal
19 Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art
IV Immersion
20 The Cinema of the Future
21 The Ultimate Display
22 Virtual Interface Environments
23 Academy Leader
24 Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace
25 A Room with a View
V Narrativity
26 The Future of the Novel
27 Untitled Guidelines for Happenings
28 Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?
29 The Fantasy Beyond Control
30 Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?
31 Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities
32 The Art and Architecture of Cyberspace
Notes and References
A Note on the Web Site
Acknowledgments
Permissions
Index
