This document discusses the history and philosophy of media. It begins with a discussion of problems of periodization and screen geometries. It then provides excerpts from historical texts on various philosophical concepts including illusion, identity, and number theory. The document presents brief descriptions of important developments in media technologies from lithography to early photography, television, and computing.

1. MECM90015 History and Philosophy of Media 2012
1. Problems of Periodisation: screen geometries
so know thou, I am the origin of this entire world
and also its destruction; beyond me there is noth-
ing higher, to me this All is linked as a chaplet of
pearls on a thread . . . whatever natures are genu-
ine, are shining or dark, they are from me, I am
not i them, they are in me . . . even the divine illu-
sion, Maya, is my illusion, hard to transcend, but
those who follow me go beyond illusion
Bhaghavad Gita 7.iv, cited in Hegel’s Aesthetics (v.1, II, 1,A,1), 367

3. A=A
Now “why a thing is itself ” is a mean-
ingless inquiry, for – to give meaning
to the question ‘why’ – the fact or the
existence of the thing must already be
evident – e.g., that the moon is eclipsed ‘Since nothing falls under the concept
– but the fact that a thing is itself is the “not identical with itself ”, I define nought
single reason and the single cause to be as follows: 0 is the number which belongs
given in answer to all such questions as to the concept “not identical with itself ”’
why the man is man, or the musician Frege, Gottlob (1974), The Foundations of Arithmetic,
musical, unless one were to answer, trans J.L. Austin, Blackwell, Oxford.: 87)
‘because each thing is inseparable from
itself, and its being one just meant this.’
A≠A
This, however, is common to all things
and is a short and easy way with the
question.
Aristotle, Metap[hysics, VII, 17: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Metaphysics/
Book_VII#Part_17

4. 0,1,2...
0, (0+1), (0+2), (0+3) . . . (0+n)
{}=0, {{}}=1, {1}=2, {2}=3 . . . {n}=n+1

5. Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828)
Tour du gros horloge, Évreux Lithograph, 331mm x 245mm
(detail of clockface above)

6. William Henry Fox Talbot, Latticed Window at
Lacock Abbey, 1835

7. Stephen H. Horgan, Steinway Hall, New York Daily Graphic,
December 2, 1873: first prited halftone photograph.

8. Bell Labs Wirephoto, first commercial transmission, New York 1935

9. The Quatermass Experiment, BBC TV, 1953, dir Rudolph Cartier, scr Nigel Kneale

10. Cathode Ray Tube
Trinitron Mask

11. LCD sub-pixel

12. Plasma Screen Pixel Array

15. Ritratto di Frà Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (1495), “inventor” of double-entry bookkeeping c. 1494

17. NCR Class 2000 Bookkeeping and Distributing Machine 193 7

19. The Domesday Book, 1086
Shannon Filing Cabinet, Schlicht & Field Co.,
Rochester, NY, 1886 ad

23. Principles of contemporary media 1:
Enumeration