Beyond the image machine : a history of visual technologies / David Tomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tomas, David.

Series:

Technologies (London, England)

Technologies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Multimedia systems--History.

Multimedia systems.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 231 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, 2004.

Summary:

Beyond the Image Machine is an eloquent and stimulating argument for an alternative history of scientific and technological imaging systems. Drawing on a range of hitherto and marginalised examples from the world of visual representation and the work of key theorists and thinkers, such as Latour, de Certeau, McLuhan and Barthes, David Tomas offers a disarticulated and deviant view of the relationship between archaic and new representations, imaging technologies and media induced experience. Rejecting the possibility of absolute forms of knowledge, Tomas shows how new media technologies have changed the nature of established disciplines.

Contents:

Part 1 Thresholds Between Media and History 11

Chapter 1 Pictures of the New and the Materialization of Vision from the Age of Discovery to the Era of the Posthuman 13

Part 2 Reinventing Media Histories 41

Chapter 2 The Materialization of Sentience: The Dynamo and the Virgin 43

Chapter 3 The Incubator: Niepce's Heliographic Imprint of 1826 61

Chapter 4 Reimagining the Computer's Origins: Mechanical Drawing and Charles Babbage's Calculating Engines 84

Chapter 5 Alternate Models of the Virtual: Optical Thresholds in Camera Lucidas and Head-mounted Displays 105

Chapter 6 Beyond the Cyborg: Antonio Panizzi's 1852 Diagram for a Circular Reading Room at the British Museum 136

Part 3 Future Histories 159

Chapter 7 Unorthodox Time Machines: Images and Instruments across Space, Time and History 161.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-220) and index.

ISBN:

0826462723

0826462731

OCLC:

54371851