A wide-ranging critical anthology examining the impact of technology on our perceptions of the world & ourselves.

"Shane Hipps reveals the subtle secrets of electronic culture and the hidden ways it is shaping the church. Looking beyond the details of what's happening in communities of faith, Hipps analyzes the broader impact of technology and media on the church."--BOOK JACKET.

The 1994 Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology began as a look at the changing nature of the home. In building scenarios of the "new home," the participants expressed many significant insights into issues of personal identity, community-building, and setting boundaries in our lives and environments. This report captures many of those insights and observations. It is intended to be a catalyst for readers to understand the consequences of the trends in communications and information technologies, to think more about these issues, and to consider appropriate new actions to take as individuals, as workers, and as citizens to have better lives and communities. The report first concentrates on the impact that electronic networks might have on the future of communities, geographical and virtual. A second major theme explored is that of changes in personal identity occasioned by electronic networking in both the physical spaces of home and geographical community, on the one hand, and the virtual communities called MUDs ("Multi-User Domain") and MOOs (MUDs using Object-Oriented computer code), on the other. A third area of focus is that of the changing nature of intermediaries in democratic societies. The areas of public policy that are ripe for review are described in the last section of the report. A paper entitled, "The New Intermediaries" (Charles M. Firestone), and a list of conference participants are appended. (MAS)

Technology revolutionised the ways that music was produced in the twentieth century. As that century drew to a close and a new century begins a new revolution in roles is underway. The separate categories of composer, performer, distributor and listener are being challenged, while the sounds of the world itself become available for musical use. All kinds of sounds are now brought into the remit of composition, enabling the music of others to be sampled (or plundered), including that of unwitting musicians from non-western cultures. This sound world may appear contradictory - stimulating and invigorating as well as exploitative and destructive. This book addresses some of the issues now posed by the brave new world of music produced with technology.

Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture provides a comprehensive history of electronic music, covering key composers, genres, and techniques used in analog and digital synthesis. This textbook has been extensively revised with the needs of students and instructors in mind. The reader-friendly style, logical organization, and pedagogical features of the fifth edition allow easy access to key ideas, milestones, and concepts. New to this edition: • A companion website, featuring key examples of electronic music, both historical and contemporary. • Listening Guides providing a moment-by-moment annotated exploration of key works of electronic music. • A new chapter—Contemporary Practices in Composing Electronic Music. • Updated presentation of classic electronic music in the United Kingdom, Italy, Latin America, and Asia, covering the history of electronic music globally. • An expanded discussion of early experiments with jazz and electronic music, and the roots of electronic rock. • Additional accounts of the vastly under-reported contributions of women composers in the field. • More photos, scores, and illustrations throughout. The companion website features a number of student and instructor resources, such as additional Listening Guides, links to streaming audio examples and online video resources, PowerPoint slides, and interactive quizzes.

Richly illustrated writings on networked global media and their effect on contemporary society.

The essays in Small Tech investigate the cultural impact of digital tools and provide fresh perspectives on mobile technologies such as iPods, digital cameras, and PDAs and software functions like cut, copy, and paste and WYSIWYG. Together they advance new thinking about digital environments. Contributors: Wendy Warren Austin, Edinboro U; Jim Bizzocchi, Simon Fraser U; Collin Gifford Brooke, Syracuse U; Paul Cesarini, Bowling Green State U; Veronique Chance, U of London; Johanna Drucker, U of Virginia; Jenny Edbauer, Penn State U; Robert A. Emmons Jr., Rutgers U; Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Clarkson U; Richard Kahn, UCLA; Douglas Kellner, UCLA; Karla Saari Kitalong, U of Central Florida; Steve Mann, U of Toronto; Lev Manovich, U of California, San Diego; Adrian Miles, RMIT U; Jason Nolan, Ryerson U; Julian Oliver; Mark Paterson, U of the West of England, Bristol; Isabel Pedersen, Ryerson U; Michael Pennell, U of Rhode Island; Joanna Castner Post, U of Central Arkansas; Teri Rueb, Rhode Island School of Design; James J. Sosnoski; Lance State, Fordham U; Jason Swarts, North Carolina State U; Barry Wellman, U of Toronto; Sean D. Williams, Clemson U; Jeremy Yuille, RMIT U. Byron Hawk is assistant professor of English at George Mason University. David M. Rieder is assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University. Ollie Oviedo is associate professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University.

"This is an outstanding book. It is one of only a few scholarly texts that successfully combine a nuanced theoretical understanding of the digital age with empirical case studies of contemporary media culture. The scope is impressive, ranging from questions of digital inequality to emergent forms of cyberpolitics." - Nick Gane, York University "Well written, very up-to-date with a good balance of examples and theory. It′s good to have all the major issues covered in one book." - Peter Millard, Portsmouth University "This is just the text I was looking for to enable first year undergraduates to develop their critical understanding of the technologies they have embedded so completely in their lives." - Chris Simpson, University College of St Mark & St John This is more than just another book on Internet studies. Tracing the pervasive influence of ′digital culture′ throughout contemporary life, this text integrates socio-economic understandings of the ′information society′ with the cultural studies approach to production, use, and consumption of digital media and multimedia. Refreshingly readable and packed with examples from profiling databases and mashups to cybersex and the truth about social networking, Understanding Digital Culture: Crosses disciplines to give a balanced account of the social, economic and cultural dimensions of the information society. Illuminates the increasing importance of mobile, wireless and converged media technologies in everyday life. Unpacks how the information society is transforming and challenging traditional notions of crime, resistance, war and protest, community, intimacy and belonging. Charts the changing cultural forms associated with new media and its consumption, including music, gaming, microblogging and online identity. Illustrates the above through a series of contemporary, in-depth case studies of digital culture. This is the perfect text for students looking for a full account of the information society, virtual cultures, sociology of the Internet and new media.

A user's guide to Stelarc, the international performance artist whose extreme performances explore the borderland between bodies and machines. Stelarc is the most celebrated artist in the world working within technology and the visual arts. He is both an artist and a phenomenon, using his body as medium and exhibition space. Working in the interface between the body and the machine, employing virtual reality, robotics, medical instruments, prosthetics, and the Internet, Stelarc's art includes physical acts that don't always look survivable—or, as science fiction novelist William Gibson puts it in his foreword, "sometimes seem to include the possibility of terminality." Stelarc's projects include Third Hand, a grasping and wrist rotating mechanism with a rudimentary sense of touch that is attached to the artist and activated by EMG from other body areas; Amplified Body, in which the artist performs acoustically with his brainwaves, muscles, pulse, and blood flow signals; and the Stomach Sculpture, a device—or "aesthetic adornment"—placed in the artist's stomach and presented through video. Works in progress include the Extra Ear Project, a soft prosthesis of skin and cartilage to be constructed on the artist's arm. Stelarc's work both reflects and determines new directions in performance art and body art. Although there have been hundreds of articles written about Stelarc since he began performing in the late 1960s, Stelarc: The Monograph is the first comprehensive study of Stelarc's work practice in over thirty years. Gathering a range of writers who approach the work from a variety of perspectives, it includes William Gibson's account of his meetings with Stelarc, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker's emphatic "WE ARE ALL STELARCS NOW," and Stelarc himself in conversation with Marquard Smith. Taken together, these writers give us a multiplicity of ways to think about Stelarc.

The personal computer has revolutionized communication, and digitized text has introduced a radically new medium of expression. Interactive, volatile, mixing word and image, the electronic word challenges our assumptions about the shape of culture itself. This highly acclaimed collection of Richard Lanham's witty, provocative, and engaging essays surveys the effects of electronic text on the arts and letters. Lanham explores how electronic text fulfills the expressive agenda of twentieth-century visual art and music, revolutionizes the curriculum, democratizes the instruments of art, and poses anew the cultural accountability of humanism itself. Persuading us with uncommon grace and power that the move from book to screen gives cause for optimism, not despair, Lanham proclaims that "electronic expression has come not to destroy the Western arts but to fulfill them." The Electronic Word is also available as a Chicago Expanded Book for your Macintosh®. This hypertext edition allows readers to move freely through the text, marking "pages," annotating passages, searching words and phrases, and immediately accessing annotations, which have been enhanced for this edition. In a special prefatory essay, Lanham introduces the features of this electronic edition and gives a vividly applied critique of this dynamic new edition.