Editors Marsha Kinder and Tara McPherson present an authoritative collection of essays on the continuing debates over medium specificity and the politics of the digital arts. Comparing the term "transmedia" with "transnational," they show that the movement beyond specific media or nations does not invalidate those entities but makes us look more closely at the cultural specificity of each combination. In two parts, the book stages debates across essays, creating dialogues that give different narrative accounts of what is historically and ideologically at stake in medium specificity and digital politics. Each part includes a substantive introduction by one of the editors. Part 1 examines precursors, contemporary theorists, and artists who are protagonists in this discursive drama, focusing on how the transmedia frictions and continuities between old and new forms can be read most productively: N. Katherine Hayles and Lev Manovich redefine medium specificity, Edward Branigan and Yuri Tsivian explore nondigital precursors, Steve Anderson and Stephen Mamber assess contemporary archival histories, and Grahame Weinbren and Caroline Bassett defend the open-ended mobility of newly emergent media. In part 2, trios of essays address various ideologies of the digital: John Hess and Patricia R. Zimmerman, Herman Gray, and David Wade Crane redraw contours of race, space, and the margins; Eric Gordon, Cristina Venegas, and John T. Caldwell unearth database cities, portable homelands, and virtual fieldwork; and Mark B.N. Hansen, Holly Willis, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Guillermo Gómez-Peña examine interactive bodies transformed by shock, gender, and color. An invaluable reference work in the field of visual media studies, Transmedia Frictions provides sound historical perspective on the social and political aspects of the interactive digital arts, demonstrating that they are never neutral or innocent.

AcknowledgmentsPreface: Origins, Agents, and Alternative ArchaeologiesPART I. MEDIUM SPECIFICITY AND PRODUCTIVE PRECURSORSMedium Specificity and Productive Precursors: An IntroductionMarsha KinderPrint Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific AnalysisN. Katherine HaylesPostmedia AestheticsLev ManovichIf-Then-Else: Memory and the Path Not TakenEdward BraniganCyberspace and Its Precursors: Lintsbach, Warburg, EisensteinYuri TsivianPast Indiscretions: Digital Archives and Recombinant HistorySteve AndersonFilms Beget Digital MediaStephen MamberNavigating the Ocean of Streams of StoryGrahame WeinbrenIs This Not a Screen? Notes on the Mobile Phone and CinemaCaroline BassettPART II. DIGITAL POSSIBILITIES AND THE REIMAGINING OF POLITICS, PLACE, AND THE SELFDigital Possibilities and the Reimagining of Politics, Place, and the Self: An IntroductionTara McPhersonTransnational/National Digital ImaginariesJohn Hess and Patricia R. ZimmermannIs (Cyber) Space the Place?Herman GrayLinkages: Political Topography and Networked TopologyDavid Wade CraneThe Database City: The Digital Possessive and Hollywood BoulevardEric GordonCuba, Cyberculture, and the Exile DiscourseCristina VenegasThinking Digitally/Acting Locally: Interactive Narrative, Neighborhood Soil, and La Cosecha Nuestra CommunityJohn T. CaldwellVideo Installation Art as Uncanny Shock, or How Bruce Nauman's Corridors Expand Sensory LifeMark B. N. HansenBraingirls and FleshmonstersHolly WillisTech-illa Sunrise (.txt con Sangrita)Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Guillermo Gómez-PeñaWorks CitedIndex