{"product_id":"image-objects-isbn-9780262045032","title":"Image Objects","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow computer graphics transformed the computer from a calculating machine into an interactive medium, as seen through the histories of five technical objects.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost 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 \u003ci\u003eImage Objects\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe 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.I Culling Vision: Hidden Surface Algorithms and the Problem of Visibility\u003cbr\u003eII Random Access Images: Interfacing Memory and the History of the Computer Screen\u003cbr\u003eIII Model Objects: The Utah Teapot as Standard and Icon\u003cbr\u003eIV Object Paradigms: On the Origins of Object Orientation\u003cbr\u003eV Procedure Crystalized: The Graphics Processing Unit and the Rise of Computer Graphics\u003cbr\u003eCoda: After Objects“Remarkably elegant... Weav[es] together both biography and technical history, archival research and media theory.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eFilm Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A welcome addition to other recent texts in the growing canon of archaeological approaches to computer hardware and software.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Andrew Reinhard, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A unique interrogation of the contemporary optical regime, structured as it is by black boxes and screens.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Michael Eby\u003ci\u003e, ArtForum\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Gaboury’s brilliant archaeology of computer graphics explores the ways in which computational media have come to act as sensory prostheses that mediate practice and experience.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eTimothy Lenoir, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Cinema \u0026amp; Digital Media and Science \u0026amp; Technology Studies at the University of California, Davis\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “With \u003ci\u003eImage Objects\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eBernard Geoghegan, Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media, King’s College London\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eImage Objects\u003c\/i\u003e presents the definitive history of computer graphics, full stop. This is a remarkable work of scholarship, and a genuinely fascinating story—which also offers a more expansive picture of the institutional landscape for early computing.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eRita Raley, author of \u003ci\u003eTactical Media\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Digging into the material culture of computer graphics, Jacob Gaboury shows how digital images transfigure the visual and recode the world as a system of interrelating, interacting objects. A fascinating story filled with theoretical twists and dazzling historical insights.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eColin Milburn, Gary Snyder Chair in Science and the Humanities, University of California, Davis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eWinner of the Computer History Museum Prize, SIGCIS, 2022.\u003c\/b\u003eJacob Gaboury is Assistant Professor of Film and Media at the University of California, Berkeley.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305495449829,"sku":"NP9780262045032","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262045032.jpg?v=1767729863","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/image-objects-isbn-9780262045032","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}