[Air-l] the new media reader

[noah wardrip-fruin]

The MIT Press has recently published a book/CD that might be of 
interest to AoIR folks. It's titled The New Media Reader, and Nick 
Montfort and I are the editors. We've put up a site about the project 
here:

http://www.newmediareader.com

The site makes available a number of works that not only haven't been 
on the Web before, but also have been hard to find in print - 
including the full text (with images) of "Personal Dynamic Media" by 
Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, significant excerpts from _Computer Lib 
/ Dream Machines_ by Ted Nelson, selections from Brenda Laurel's 
_Computers as Theater_ and her PhD dissertation, etc.

I'll paste more detailed information about the book/CD below.

Noah


The New Media Reader
edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort
book design by Michael Crumpton
isbn: 0262232278

The new media field has been developing for more than 50 years. This 
reader collects the texts, videos, and computer programs - many of 
them now almost impossible to find - that chronicle the history and 
form the foundation of this still-emerging field. General 
introductions by Janet H. Murray (author of Hamlet on the Holodeck) 
and Lev Manovich (author of The Language of New Media), along with 
short introductions to each of the selections, place the works in 
their historical context and explain their significance.

The texts are from computer scientists, artists, architects, literary 
writers, interface designers, cultural critics, and individuals 
working across disciplines. They were originally published between 
World War II (when digital computing, cybernetic feedback, and early 
notions of hypertext and the Internet first appeared) and the 
emergence of the World Wide Web (when these concepts entered the 
mainstream of public life).

The CD accompanying the book contains examples of early games, 
digital art, independent literary efforts, software created at 
universities, and home-computer commercial software. Also on the CD 
is digitized video, documenting new media programs and artwork for 
which no operational version exists.