Euphoria & Dystopia: The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues

Featuring worldwide pioneers, cultural icons, and digital-industry innovators, Euphoria & Dystopia documents the key decade of the Banff New Media Institute, between 1995 and 2005. Attracted by innovative programming set against Banff's extraordinary mountain landscape, hundreds of international practitioners were brought together to debate the new forms wrought by technology. Their discussions, gathered here, celebrate the belief that the creative sector, in collaboration with science and engineering, can invent technologies that work for human betterment and create a more participatory culture. This volume charts the rise of the emerging field of digital media art and industry. It is essential reading for scholars, developers, and theorists of new media.
The contents of Euphoria & Dystopia include over 150 original transcripts drawn from thousands of hours of audio material and organized by themes that range from data visualization to the interface of technology and the body to curating to gaming. It includes fully annotated references and biographies of participants, a detailed list of events that took place at Banff between 1995 and 2005, and transcripts from the annual Interactive Screen event and numerous summits and workshops. The book includes essays from the co-editors and from leading new-media theorists including Allucquere Rosanne Stone, N. Katherine Hayles, Steve Dietz, and Eric Kluitenberg. Included is the catalogue of the exhibition The Art Formerly Known As New Media (2005) and a DVD of HorizonZero, the groundbreaking bilingual electronic journal produced at Banff from 2002 to 2004.