New Media - Foundations and Futures

> Announcing a celebration of
> The New Media Reader (MIT Press, 2003)

When I got this reader, I first thought; how neat and convenient to have all
these texts, many of which have already appeared in an anthologized form, in
one volume. Then I thought; how clever to sell the same texts again, wrapped
in very much the same historical genealogy as From Wagner to Virtual
Reality, and how nice to have a syllabus-ready history book with an
illustrative CD of exemplary moments. They even threw in a blow-by-blow
timeline in the upper margin on this one; it ends with Berners-Lee, of
course.

What has become increasingly telling to me is how these dominant "new media"
writers, editors, curators etc. have retreated from actually using this
"new" in "media" and entrenched themselves in the same old books, lecture
tours, museum-sponsored shows etc. Of course, part of it is the failure of
the attendant "new" economy, so this mass departure from mailing lists and
online forums/journals obviously has a lot to do with a return to the proven
means of value-added discourse in older media; monopolies, scarcity,
copyright etc.

What we get is what we now have; a string of self-service announcements,
like this one, effectively celebrating and promoting the decline of new
media. Come join the wake.

For the foundations of the future, please note that I will only accept new
media book announcements via snail mail.

-af