Some books are simply amply informative about what it says on their cover; others are ostensibly about people, things, times, places, or events but actually use these to make far wider points or to promulgate theory and opinion. Rarely, you get both— a work whose parts are so rich and richly intertwined that new meanings and insights are generated for and by the reader. This book is one.
Similarly, some texts having to do with the arts, design, culture, and technological media examine whole areas while others concentrate on the detail of specific moments, movements, or indeed movers. This invaluable and authoritative collection of chapters under the editorship of Catherine Mason, an art historian and author who is on the board of the British Computer Arts Society (CAS), does both, the valuable general emerging as a macrocosm from the captivating particular. (I should note here my presence in the index...