New Media Reader pages 73-108

Douglas Engelbart writes that augmenting human intellect will require not only new technologies but also the development of new methods of thinking and working. These chapters of the reader continue to outline the paradigm shifts that contributed to the foundations of new media. We see how Allan Kaprow uses Happenings to redefine what theater can be. He and his collaborators created a form with less boundaries between performance, that were unscripted and spontaneous, that stimulated all the senses. He also takes the commercialism of the established art world to task, stating that the happenings are something which are difficult to co-opt. In this essay, we see some embryotic new media art themes: breakdown of boundaries between disciplines, interactivity, and a rejection of established commercial venues. In Burrough's essay on "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin," he defines a modern conciousness which is able to understand information that is non-linear, fragmented, and contains infinite random exciting combinations. All of these new art forms spring from the same anxiety that spurred Engelbart, the inability of humans to deal with the increasing complex issues that confront them, and a search for an alternative to this.