I’m on sabbatical this year, amazing, and since its syllabus time I decided to post a general New Media Theory reading list. Much of it comes from Montfort and Wardrip-Fruin’s excellent text The New Media Reader. In order of instruction.

  • Marshall McLuhan. The medium is the Message. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1964, 203-209.
  • Some Dinkla. From Participation to Interaction. In Lynn Leeson’s Clicking In, Bay Press, 1996.
  • Vannevar Bush. As We May Think. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1945, 35-47.
  • Mark Weiser. The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, September 1991.
  • Alan Kaprow. Nontheatrical Performance. In Jeff Kelley’s Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. UC Press, 1976, 163-180.
  • Augusto Boal. Theater of the Opressed. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1974, 339-352.
  • Langdon Winner. Mythinformation. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1986, 587-598.
  • Experiments in Art and Technology. Four Selections. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1961, 211226.
  • Roy Ascott. The Construction of Change. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1964, 128-130.
  • Roy Ascott. The Cybernetic Stance. Leonardo, 1968.
  • Walter Benjamin. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 1936.
  • The Garden of Forking Paths. Jorge Borges. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1941, 30-34.
  • Oulipo. Six Selections. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1961, 147-189.
  • Espen Aarseth. Nonlinearity and Literary Theory. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1994, 762-780.
  • Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1980, 405-409.
  • Alan Turing. Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1950, 49-64.
  • Joseph Weizenbaum. Computer Power and Human Reason. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1976, 367-375.
  • Donna Haraway. A Cyborf Manifesto. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1985, 515-541.
  • Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum. The Yes Men. MGM Distribution, 2003
  • Hiroshi Ishii et al. Radical Atoms. Interactions, 2012.
  • Paul Dourish. Where the Action Is. MIT Press, 2001.
  • Caroline Hummels et al. Move to Get Moved. Pers Ubiquit Comput, 2007.
  • Myron Kruger. Responsive Environments. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nich Montfort’s The New Media Reader, MIT Press, 1977, 377-389.
  • Claire Bishop. Digital Divide. ArtForum, 2012.
  • Varvara Guljaeva. From Interaction to Post-Participation. International Symposium for Electronic Art, 2019.
  • Pedro Ferreira and Louisa Ribas. Post-Digital Aesthetics. xCoAx, 2020.