"A Xerox Press book." Includes index.

A visual history of the electronic age captures the collision of technology and art—and our collective visions of the future. A hidden history of the twentieth century’s brilliant innovations—as seen through art and images of electronics that fed the dreams of millions. A rich historical account of electronic technology in the twentieth century, Inside the Machine journeys from the very origins of electronics, vacuum tubes, through the invention of cathode-ray tubes and transistors to the bold frontier of digital computing in the 1960s. But, as cultural historian Megan Prelinger explores here, the history of electronics in the twentieth century is not only a history of scientific discoveries carried out in laboratories across America. It is also a story shaped by a generation of artists, designers, and creative thinkers who gave imaginative form to the most elusive matter of all: electrons and their revolutionary powers. As inventors learned to channel the flow of electrons, starting revolutions in automation, bionics, and cybernetics, generations of commercial artists moved through the traditions of Futurism, Bauhaus, modernism, and conceptual art, finding ways to link art and technology as never before. A visual tour of this dynamic era, Inside the Machine traces advances and practical revolutions in automation, bionics, computer language, and even cybernetics. Nestled alongside are surprising glimpses into the inner workings of corporations that shaped the modern world: AT&T, General Electric, Lockheed Martin. While electronics may have indelibly changed our age, Inside the Machine reveals a little-known explosion of creativity in the history of electronics and the minds behind it.

Bringing together authors from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and art, this book addresses the question ‘Why draw?’ by examining the various dynamic relationships between media, process, thought and environment.

Updated to 2020, BOOKS ON COLOUR 1495-2015 offers quick and easy reference to 2,500 authors and editors and over 3,000 titles published by them. Following a concise historical survey of colour literature, authors are listed in an A-Z directory, together with titles, dates and places of publication, and translations for non-English titles. Biographical references are included where known. Chronological indexes of authors precede the bibliographical listing and alphabetical indexes of authors follow it. Publications are categorised under 27 general headings: Architecture, Chemistry, Classification, Colorants, Computing & Television, Decoration, Design, Dress & Cosmetics, Dyeing, Flora & Fauna, Food, Glass, History, Lighting, Metrology, Music, Optics, Painting, Perception, Philosophy, Photography & Cinema, Printing, Psychology, Symbolism, Terminology, Therapy, and Vision.

Television, video games, and computers are easily accessible to twenty-first-century children, but what impact do they have on creativity and imagination? In this book, two wise and long-admired observers of children's make-believe look at the cognitive and moral potential--and concern--created by electronic media.

Electronic communication is radically altering literacy practices. Silicon Literacies unravels the key features of the new communication order to explore the social, cultural and educational impact of silicon literacy practices. Written by leading international scholars from a range of disciplines, the essays in this collection examine the implications of text produced on a keyboard, visible on a screen and transmitted through a global network of computers. The book covers topics as diverse as role-playing in computer games, the use of graphic symbols in on-screen texts and Internet degree programmes to reveal that being literate is to do with understanding how different modalities combine to create meaning. Recognizing that reading and writing are only part of what people have to learn to be literate, the contributors enhance our understanding of the ways in which the use of new technologies influence, shape and sometimes transform literacy practices.

Julie Wosk examines the role of machines in helping women reconfigure and transform their lives. She takes her readers through a gallery of fiction and high and low art which depicts women in their association with machines.