Hyperkult: Geschichte, Theorie Und Kontext Digitaler Medien (Hypercult: History, Theory and Context of Digital Media) ed. by Martin Warnke (review)

146 Reviews The ninth and final chapter, “Scientists , Science, and Society,” is both welcome and appropriate. It represents the ideas and views of a successful scientist and at the level of a sincere fireside chat. However, a discussion of the contributions of Robert Merton and his followers in the sociology of science, who popularized the term “organized skepticism” (as opposed to an unqualified “skepticism,” which may conjure up simply “doubting Thomases” in the lay mind), would have improved this section. It may be of passing interest to mention that the American Physical Society recently engaged a select committee to formulate working definitions of science and scientific research. To date, according to the popular press, the committee remains dissatisfied with its attempts, which reminds us of the difficulties that attend such seemingly simple endeavors. HYPERKULT: GESCHICHTE, THEORIE UND KONTEXT DIGITALER MEDIEN (HYPERCULT: HISTORY, THEORY AND CONTEXT OF DIGITAL MEDIA) edited by Martin Warnke, Wolfgang Coy and Georg Christoph Tholen Stroemfeld. Basel & Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1997. 520 pp. Paper, illus., DM 78.00. ISBN: 3-86109-141-0. (In German) Reviewed by Yvonne Spielmann, University of Siegen, SFB-240, St. Johann Str. 18, D57074 Siegen, Germany. E-mail: . Hyperkult: Geschichte, Theorie und Kontext Digitaler Medien discusses hypermedia from the points of view of theoreticians, media practitioners and artists. It presents interesting examples of hypertext as well as fascinating new ideas on the interrelationship between computers and media. It also gives the reader insight into the different meanings of computer-related metaphors such as hypertext, interactivity and the Internet. The variety of disciplines discussed here—philosophy, literature, music, film and photography—are discussed in essays , historical or theoretical surveys and project descriptions resulting from a series of workshops annually organized by the computer science department at the University of Lüneburg. It is due to the circumspection of the organizers as editors in dealing with the complexity of crossing borders in the current media debate that the vividness of the workshops is reflected and maintained in the collected writings. The term “hypercult ,” the title of the workshop series, establishes the cohesion between investigations into areas like medium and machine, program and commutation, and tools and instruments. Hyperkult is divided into four sections that essentially deal with the interrelationship between the medium in the machine and the machine as medium: computers as media, metaphors of omnidirectional spaces, media machines, and virtual realities. It mainly includes contributions written from a German viewpoint, with the exception of works by artist Arnold Dreyblatt and Danish multimedia expert Peter Andersen. German contributions include those by Wolfgang Coy and Friedrich Kittler on computing, Peter Gendolla and Hartmut Winkler on metaphors, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Joachim Paech on imaging machines, and Joerg Pflueger and Hans-Jochen Metzger on agents and artificial intelligence. The theoretical complexity of the book encompasses two developments in the history and ordering of the sciences: the first is the humanities and its hermeneutics , the second is mathematics (especially computer science). These disciplines are compared to critical readings of metaphors such as hypertext and interactivity as applied to computing processes by which the Internet, human -machine interfaces and artificial life are often characterized. The critical approaches address the shifted use of these categories that derive from either literary theory or biology and that are linked to phenomena of hybridization and hypercult. Conversely, many authors , namely Hans-Jochen Metzger in his survey on artificial life, call for a close examination of environmental conditions, technical requirements and cultural constraints that have to be taken into consideration when we talk about the possibilities and limits of connectivity through digital media. The editors of Hyperkult call for a crossing of the borders between computer science and cultural studies if we want to discuss the ways that the computer can be considered as a medium, in particular a hypermedium. The compendium brings together almost 20 authors from varying disciplines of theory and practice. These theoreticians have developed ways of bridging the gap between discourse and the history and theories of computers by examining the common ground between them. The collection starts from the assumption that the metaphors we use to describe computers as symbolic machines are too limited to adequately deal...