Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality

""What we need is a computer that isn't labor-saving but that increases the work for us to do, that... turns us... not `on' but into artists,"" writes John Cage in his essay in Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, with a foreword (and an excerpt) by William Gibson. Surveying various artistic disciplines, the editors uncover the intersections of the avant-garde and strict computer science with inclusions like Tim Berners-Lee's 1980s prospectus for the World Wide Web, titled ""Information Management: A Proposal,"" and ignored by his colleagues until he made the software, and his fortune, independently. Contributors include Bauhaus luminary L szl Moholy-Nagy, Cage prot g and performance artist Nam June Paik, and artist Lynn Hershman. Photos and illus. (Norton, $26.95 416p ISBN 0-393-04979-5; Apr.)