BOOK
The Gist: Encyclopedia Of Sensory Overload
$26.95
A young student of mine confided he had recently "invented" helmet displays for VR. Of course, anyone who's been to the Siggraph conference in the past 20 years has seen hundreds of these devices. But without a good reference text, it's hard for those new to the field to know otherwise. 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. The book starts with an "Overture," an evocative whirlwind tour through 100 years of work. The rest is primary texts - articles, papers, and diagrams - each with an introduction that provides context and highlights connections that run throughout.
Some chapters come from expected luminaries like Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, and Ted Nelson. But I was happy to also see key thinkers like Roy Ascott, Myron Krueger, and Marc Canter, who innovated without always having an audience and who don't often receive the credit they deserve. I consider Krueger the father of artificial reality, a title that's generally conferred on Jaron Lanier (who doesn't get a chapter). About 20 years ago, I used a Krueger demo to sculpt, without sensors, a lump of virtual 3-D clay with my bare hands. It was an amazing experience, and I hope someday to do this on a PC. Canter, through Macromedia, put multimedia development tools in the hands of designers and artists, which led to QuickTime VR and changed the medium forever.
The oldest chapter comes from classical composer Richard Wagner, whose Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) vision of opera presaged the multimedia ethos. Artist Bill Viola's chapter, in contrast, expresses the voice of a relative newcomer, challenging us to create films as idea spaces and memories placed across time. It's a great selection, and I only wish there were more such contemporary gems to inspire a new generation.
Packer and Jordan's excellent collection does have shortcomings. I'd like to see more images, in color. A graphical timeline would help convey how the chapters interrelate, and short author bios would show the diversity of contributor backgrounds. Finally, the selections reflect multimedia's historic bias in the presentation of information, with little emphasis on letting users express themselves through speech, gesture, and movement.
W.W. Norton & Company: www.wwnorton.com.
STREET CRED
Springboard: Exploring the Digital Age
Nestler Synthese CAD
Fab Force SK1 Fins
Free Flight: From Airline Hell to a New Age of Travel, by James Fallows
Spaceman
Sharpeworld
ThinkPad TransNote
ReadMe
Music
Bizarro Comics
Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
Memory Key, Q., and Thumbdrive
Just Outta Beta
Cosmonaut Keep, by Ken MacLeod
Postal Auction of Damaged and Unclaimed Goods
Contributors
