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Hodges, James Andrew.
Information technology, para-academic research culture, and "post-literary" communication techniques: a materialist cultural history of interdisciplinary computing (1950-2000). Retrieved from
https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-j29q-hy58Export
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TitleInformation technology, para-academic research culture, and "post-literary" communication techniques: a materialist cultural history of interdisciplinary computing (1950-2000)
Degree Date2020-10
Date Created2020
DescriptionContemporary computer interfaces are frequently designed using multiple media, including images, audio, and animation. These digital interaction modalities were conceptualized, implemented, and popularized within an interdisciplinary network of collaboration at the edges of previously existing institutions during the second half of the twentieth century. By identifying common beliefs, references, and approaches shared among interdisciplinary groups of collaborators, this project presents a critical reexamination of many foundational assumptions currently built into ubiquitous computer interfaces, in order to better understand the philosophical and technical origins of such multimedia computing. These goals are achieved through archival research and technical analysis of a series of exemplary artifacts and projects pulled from within the growing multimedia and digital computing communities between 1950 and 2000.
Case studies for this research are drawn from the works of Dr. Timothy Leary (1920-1996), an American psychologist whose career included a series of collaborations with academics, government officials, artists, software publishers, and computer hardware companies, all oriented around the theme of facilitating new forms of non-verbal expression using information technologies. By examining a series of case studies drawn from Leary’s long career, this dissertation presents a set of shared references and approaches common among representatives from each of the identified sectors. The shared assumptions represented in participants’ written and oral testimonies, as well as in the technical composition of their actual historical artifacts, goes against the grain of conventional histories of computing by emphasizing the significance of interdisciplinary computing communities of the late twentieth century.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Graduate ProgramCommunication, Information and Library Studies
SchoolSchool of Graduate Studies
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
LanguageEnglish
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.