Overture” by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan from
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| “Overture”
by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan from http://www.w2vr.com/overture/prologue.html M   ultimedia is emerging as the defining medium of the 21st century. The World Wide Web, CD-ROMs, virtual reality arcade games, and interactive installations only hint at the forms of multimedia to come. Yet the concept of integrated, interactive media has its own long history, an evolution that spans over 150 years. Remarkably, this has been a largely untold story. Discussions of the development of the personal computer and the Internet tend to focus on a few highly successful entrepreneurs, neglecting the less known work of the engineers and artists who first sought to craft a medium that would appeal to all the senses simultaneously – a medium that would mimic and enhance the creative capacities of the human mind. Here, then, is a "secret history" of multimedia: a narrative that includes the pioneering activities of a diverse group of artists, scientists, poets, musicians, and theorists from Richard Wagner to Ivan Sutherland, from Vannevar Bush to Bill Viola.
I  n the years since World War II, scientists have pursued personal computing and human - computer interactivity as vehicles for transforming consciousness, extending memory, increasing knowledge, amplifying the intellect, and enhancing creativity. The idealistic and ideological aspirations of both groups have resulted in a new medium that emphasizes individual choice, free association, and personal expression.
N  ew technology has always been used to make media. George Lucas shot his latest Star Wars epic with digital cameras, though the audience experience was no different than if it had been shot on celluloid. But while not all computer-based media is multimedia, today's multimedia starts with the computer, and takes the greatest advantage of the computer's capability for personal expression.
D  igital computers were initially designed as calculating machines. The first fully electronic computer, the ENIAC, was built by the U.S. military during World War II to produce ballistics tables for artillery in battle. Computers then were clumsy, hulking devices – the ENIAC had 18,000 vacuum tubes, and measured 50 x 30 feet – that did calculations for scientific research. Only a handful of scientists considered the possibility of personal computing for creative purposes by non-specialists.
T  he first scientist to think seriously of this potential was Vannevar Bush. In his 1945 article "As We May Think," he outlined "a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library." Before the ENIAC was completed, Bush was already contemplating how information technology could enhance the individual's capability for creative thought. "The human mind... operates by association," Bush observed. The device that he proposed, which he named the Memex, enabled the associative indexing of information, so that the reader's trail of association would be saved inside the machine, available for reference at a later date. This prefigured the notion of the hyperlink. While Bush never actually built the Memex, and while his description of it relied on technology that predated digital information storage, his ideas had a profound influence on the evolution of the personal computer.
I  n the years immediately after the War, under the shadow of the atomic bomb, the scientific establishment made a concerted effort to apply recent advancements in technology to humanitarian purposes. In this climate, Norbert Wiener completed his groundbreaking theory on cybernetics. While Wiener did not live to see the birth of the personal computer, his book, The Human Use of Human Beings, has become de rigeur for anyone investigating the psychological and socio-cultural implications of human-machine interaction. Wiener understood that the quality of our communication with machines effects the quality of our inner lives. His approach provided the conceptual basis for human-computer interactivity and for our study of the social impact of electronic media.
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