<div dir="ltr"><div>Some of you have very generously mentioned the book on the SIGCIS list already, but I thought it would be a good idea to officially announce the release of my book on the history of computer graphics from MIT Press. <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/image-objects"><i>Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics</i></a> examines the history of computer graphics from roughly 1950-1980, with a focus on the groundbreaking research program at the University of Utah. The book is based largely on archival holdings at Utah and elsewhere, and follows an "object-oriented" structure, with each chapter unpacking a particular technology that shaped the formation of the field of computer graphics, and which continues to shape the ways we use and interact with computational technologies today. SIGCIS has been a critical community for this project since the very beginning, and I am very excited to share this work with all of you.<br></div><div><br></div><div>The book is also available with a <a href="https://go.mitpress.mit.edu/en-us/4s2021?utm_campaign=FY22_Exhibits_4S&utm_content=181406244">20% discount</a> for the month of October using the code <span class="gmail-css-901oao gmail-css-16my406 gmail-r-poiln3 gmail-r-bcqeeo gmail-r-qvutc0">4S2021!</span></div><div><span class="gmail-css-901oao gmail-css-16my406 gmail-r-poiln3 gmail-r-bcqeeo gmail-r-qvutc0"></span><br></div><div><b>Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics</b></div><div><b>Jacob Gaboury</b><br></div><div><span><span><br></span></span></div><div><span><span>312 pages | 6 x 9 | <span>133 b&w photos, 20 color plates</span></span></span><div class="gmail-tab-content__rail-item"><span><span></span></span>
<span>Hardcover Aug 2021 | ISBN: <span>9780262045032</span></span> <span><span>| <span><span>$35.00</span></span></span></span>
</div></div><div><br></div><div>Table of Contents</div><div><br></div><div>Introduction<br>Chapter 1: Culling Vision: Hidden Surface Algorithms and the Problem of Visibility</div><div>Chapter 2: Random-Access Images: Interfacing Memory and the History of the Computer Screen<br>Chapter 3: Model Objects: The Utah Teapot as Standard and Icon<br>Chapter 4: Object Paradigms: On the Origins of Object Orientation<br>Chapter 5: Procedure Crystallized: The Graphics Processing Unit and the Rise of Computer Graphics</div><div>Coda: After Objects<br></div><div><i><br></i></div><div><i>“With Image Objects, Gaboury has
established himself as the leading voice among a new generation of
visual culture theorists. This is a landmark contribution to the fields
of digital culture, media theory, and science and technology studies."</i> - Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media, King's College London</div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b></b></div><div><b>How computer graphics transformed the computer from a
calculating machine into an interactive medium, as seen through the
histories of five technical objects.</b><p>Most of us think of
computer graphics as a relatively recent invention, enabling the
spectacular visual effects and lifelike simulations we see in current
films, television shows, and digital games. In fact, computer graphics
have been around as long as the modern computer itself, and played a
fundamental role in the development of our contemporary culture of
computing. In <i>Image Objects</i>, Jacob Gaboury offers a prehistory of
computer graphics through an examination of five technical objects—an
algorithm, an interface, an object standard, a programming paradigm, and
a hardware platform—arguing that computer graphics transformed the
computer from a calculating machine into an interactive medium.</p><p>Gaboury
explores early efforts to produce an algorithmic solution for the
calculation of object visibility; considers the history of the computer
screen and the random-access memory that first made interactive images
possible; examines the standardization of graphical objects through the
Utah teapot, the most famous graphical model in the history of the
field; reviews the graphical origins of the object-oriented programming
paradigm; and, finally, considers the development of the graphics
processing unit as the catalyst that enabled an explosion in graphical
computing at the end of the twentieth century. </p><p>The development of
computer graphics, Gaboury argues, signals a change not only in the way
we make images but also in the way we mediate our world through the
computer—and how we have come to reimagine that world as computational.</p><p>-- <br></p><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Jacob Gaboury (he/him)<br>Associate Professor of New Media History and Theory<br>Dept. of Film & Media, University of California at Berkeley</div><div dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.jacobgaboury.com/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">jacobgaboury.com/</a></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div><i>Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics</i> (MIT Press, 2021)</div><div><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/image-objects" target="_blank">https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/image-objects</a><br></div></div></div>
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