Prereading

In class we will review Vannevar Bush's groundbreaking article in which he outlines the internet in a complete analog way in 1945. We will look for similarities and differences between his idea and the current internet. This is a pioneering new media paper so interesting by itself, but also a good example that the ideas and concepts behind today's new media can often be traced back to the early days, and that by reflecting on these old examples one can actually get inspiration how to evolve today's new media into the future.

Vannevar Bush. As We May Think. Reprint from The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1945. Interactions, March 1996.

Please do the following:

• • Watch the movies, and then read the article. You can start with the intro, section 1, and then section 6 onwards

  • Capture examples of similarities between the Memex and the Web

  • Capture examples of functional differences - how does the Memex deviate from standard functional web use

  • Fastforward into the future by picking one of the differences, and design a novel imaginary app or capability inspired by this difference

We will a short group discussion in class about your findings. 

Bonus if you want more perspective: 

Read cyberpunk author William Gibson's 2003 blog post on Vannevar Bush, and who the real cyborg is out there.

Online Class

10:00am until 12:00/12:30 pm, Friday April 17. 

• • About the NMNT Course

  • Discussion of 'As we may think' by Vannevar Bush

  • Lecture

    • All Media was Once New

    • Hardware, Interfaces, Human

    • Early Cybernetic Art

  • Narrative (not covered  in class)

  • Review Lab 1

All the slide handouts can be found here.

Logistics:

• • [To be done] I will open the Kaltura Liveroom at 9:30 just in case you want to test, Liveroom details can be found on Blackboard. Note that Kaltura does not work on Safari, but well on Chrome for instance (system requirements)

  • [To be done] See Blackboard as well for details to a Slack space

  • We will be using this website for documentation. Please send me your email address that you want to use to log in, It's a gmail or any other account that you want to associate to a Google account.

References

Thomas Dreher, History of Computer Art

Douglas C. Engelbart and William K. English. A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect. AFIPS Conference Proceedings of the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference/, San Francisco, CA, December 9, 1968, Vol. 33, pp. 395-410.

In this paper Engelbart demonstrates his key personal networked workstation with a lot of features that only relatively recently have become commonplace; he presented remotely to the conference which was also a first, a full movie recording along with a rich set of background is available. He also gave a Google Tech Talk 39 years later looking what actually became reality.

J.C.R. Licklider. Man Computer Symbiosis. IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics,volume HFE-1, pages 4-11, March 1960

Nicolas Schöffer, CYSP-1, a robotic danser (1956), description at Cybernetic Zoo

cyberneticserendipity.net, web site dedicated to the Cybernetic Serendipity Expo (full expo catalogue)

Jack Burnham. Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art. Exhibition Catalogue, Jewish Museum, New York, 1970.

Senster.com, a site dedicated to Edward Ihnatowicz, early cybernetic researcher and artist. 

Edward Ihnatowicz, Cybernetic Art: a Personal Statement

Evoluon.org, website dedicated to the location where Senster was exhibited.

Bots Like You

For more see Further Reading & Viewing