On a Silver Platter : The Promises of a New Technology

by Smith, Greg M.

• ISBN13: 9780814780800
• ISBN10: 0814780806
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

When the new medium of CD-ROMs emerged, industry figures and critics alike proclaimed their virtually unlimited potential. Adapting material from well-established media like television and film, CD-ROMs have quickly transformed genres such as science fiction and horror. At the same time, the realities of actual CD-ROMs often fall short of their utopian visions.On a Silver Plattermarks a "coming of age" for CD-ROMs as a commercially and aesthetically significant medium demanding critical attention. Greg Smith brings together media scholars such as Lisa Cartwright, Henry Jenkins, Janet Murray, and Scott Bukatman to analyze how CD-ROMs offer alternatives to familiar places--to museums, to cities, and especially to classrooms. Examining specific CD-ROM titles, including, Sim City, Civilization, and Phantasmagoria, the contributors argue that CD-ROMs are complex texts worthy of close consideration, both for how they have changed our understanding of space and genre, and for how they will impact the development of future media.By examining particular CD-ROM texts and contexts,On a Silver Platterprobes this new medium for insight and understanding into the current state of multimedia and into the future of technology.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: A Few Words about Interactivity	1	(34)
Greg M. Smith
2 Before the Holodeck: Translating Star Trek into Digital Media	35	(23)
Janet Murray
Henry Jenkins
3 "To Waste More Time, Please Click Here Again": Monty Python and the Quest for Film/CD-ROM Adaptation	58	(29)
Greg M. Smith
4 "Evil Will Walk Once More": Phantasmagoria--The Stalker Film as Interactive Movie?	87	(26)
Angela Ndalianis
5 Busy Box Interface: The Pleasures of Winding	113	(19)
Brian Kelly
Scott Bukatman
6 Civilization and Its Discontents: Simulation, Subjectivity, and Space	132	(19)
Ted Friedman
7 Museum (Dis)Play: Imagining the Museum on CD-ROM	151	(33)
Alison Trope
8 Virtual Kinship in a Postmodern World: Computer-Mediated Genealogy Communities	184	(27)
Pamela Wilson
9 Fantasies of Mastery or Masteries of Fantasy? Playing with CD-ROMs in the 5th Dimension	211	(28)
Vanessa Gack
10 Showing and Telling: Developing CD-ROMs for the Classroom and Research	239	(22)
Leslie Jarmon
11 Doing Theory in Hypermedia Practice: A Case Study of the HyperHistory Video Project	261	(18)
Lisa Cartwright
Contributors	279	(4)
Index	283