当今的艺术往往以揣测为源：艺术展现的只是日常的表象，人们总在琢磨其背后隐匿的秘密。只有某种诡谲的、色彩斑斓的画面才会彻底唤起我们的注意。鲍里斯?格罗伊斯在他这部伟大的著作中，向我们解释了揣测怎样在不同的媒介中起作用，以及为什么自马勒维奇与杜尚以来，人们总是在为“现代艺术中究竟何为艺术，何为俗物”这类问题争论不休。艺术是值得人们去揣测的东西，就好比将一把铲雪锹或者一小撮米放在博物馆中一件广受认可的艺术品旁边，任由人们去讨论，这就一定会引起揣测。这类争论的有趣之处在于，它可能为在物质上有限的艺术作品开启了一个潜在的可以无限反思的空间。通过这本书，鲍里斯?格罗伊斯论证了艺术与媒介间广泛的现象学，同时也把其先前一本著作《论新事物》中的一些论题进行了拓展。

1948年，维纳的《控制论》问世。这是一本技术性很强的书，不易读懂。为了使控制论的观念能为一般人所接受，维纳在1950年出版了《人有人的用处：控制论与社会》一书，目的就是希望通过他的努力使得人类在技术世界的环绕中更加有尊严、更有人性；而不是相反。
这本书从技术谈起，逐渐将视角扩大到文化、社会等各个领域：包括人类与动物不同的学习机制、语言的机制和历史、信息的组织方式、法律和传播过程的关系、传播和社会政治的关系、知识分子的角色问题、第一次和第二次工业革命、语言中的曲解问题等等话题。在书的后记中，WalterA.Rosenblith评价自1950年以来，这本书深刻地影响了众多科学家、工程师、社会学家、政治家、社会政策制订者看待技术进步中社会变革的方式。

Software has replaced a diverse array of physical, mechanical, and electronic technologies used before 21st century to create, store, distribute and interact with cultural artifacts. It has become our interface to the world, to others, to our memory and our imagination - a universal language through which the world speaks, and a universal engine on which the world runs. What electricity and combustion engine were to the early 20th century, software is to the early 21st century. Offering the the first theoretical and historical account of software for media authoring and its effects on the practice and the very concept of 'media,' the author of The Language of New Media (2001) develops his own theory for this rapidly-growing, always-changing field.
What was the thinking and motivations of people who in the 1960 and 1970s created concepts and practical techniques that underlie contemporary media software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Final Cut and After Effects? How do their interfaces and tools shape the visual aesthetics of contemporary media and design? What happens to the idea of a 'medium' after previously media-specific tools have been simulated and extended in software? Is it still meaningful to talk about different mediums at all? Lev Manovich answers these questions and supports his theoretical arguments by detailed analysis of key media applications such as Photoshop and After Effects, popular web services such as Google Earth, and the projects in motion graphics, interactive environments, graphic design and architecture. Software Takes Command is a must for all practicing designers and media artists and scholars concerned with contemporary media.

Although they entered the world as pure science fiction, robots are now very much a fact of everyday life. Whether a space-age cyborg, a chess-playing automaton, or simply the smartphone in our pocket, robots have long been a symbol of the fraught and fearful relationship between ourselves and our creations. Though we tend to think of them as products of twentieth-century technology—the word “robot” itself dates to only 1921—as a concept, they have colored US society and culture for far longer, as Dustin A. Abnet shows to dazzling effect in The American Robot.
In tracing the history of the idea of robots in US culture, Abnet draws on intellectual history, religion, literature, film, and television. He explores how robots and their many kin have not only conceptually connected but literally embodied some of the most critical questions in modern culture. He also investigates how the discourse around robots has reinforced social and economic inequalities, as well as fantasies of mass domination—chilling thoughts that the recent increase in job automation has done little to quell. The American Robot argues that the deep history of robots has abetted both the literal replacement of humans by machines and the figurative transformation of humans into machines, connecting advances in technology and capitalism to individual and societal change. Look beneath the fears that fracture our society, Abnet tells us, and you’re likely to find a robot lurking there.

★美国人类学学会维克多·特纳民族志写作奖得主
★美国文化人类学学会格雷戈里·贝特森奖得主
★柯克斯书评非虚构写作年度最佳图书
★泰晤士报高等教育年度最佳图书
【编辑推荐】
*日本美食家、资本主义商人、老挝丛林战士、工业林、中国牧羊人、芬兰乡村向导……如何讲述珍稀松茸供应链的故事？
*乌托邦想象看起来困在一个单程未来里，身处一个充满不确定性的世界，人类要如何自处?又何去何从?
*在一朵缠绕着人类经济活动、种族历史、自然生态及末世生存策略的独特蘑菇当中，或许藏有答案。
【内容简介】
在横跨日本东京与京都、美国俄勒冈州、中国云南、芬兰拉普兰等地的田野调查中，作者跟随一条鲜为人知的商品供应链，一步步呈现珍稀松茸的“身份转译”：在废弃工业林悄悄破土而出，被遁入山林寻求自由的瑶族、苗族与东南亚裔采摘者收集，再通过竞价激烈的保值票市场，累积层层价值进入日本，化身为带有强烈象征的礼物。
松茸浓缩在如此奇特的跨地理、跨文化转译过程中，也提一个更宏观的提问——在迈进“人类世”的此刻，不强调发展与进步的社会是什么模样? 人类是否能与各物种保有互不和谐、但又无须掠夺的和平共存?
===============================================
人们很少会发现一本书既有最佳意义上的学者风范，又像是精心构思的小说中流畅的写作。《末日松茸》就是这样一部出色的作品，构思巧妙，读起来令人愉悦。——玛丽莲·斯特拉赫恩（英国剑桥大学社会人类学荣誉退休教授）
如果人类必须在资本主义废墟、也就是有些人称为“人类世”的时代当中求生，那么，我们就需要一个例子，从中窥见经济、文化、生态以及生存策略彼此之间，能形成何等出乎意料的纠结与联系。在本书中，作者借着非比寻常的全球化的松茸，提出了美妙非凡的实例。——布鲁诺・拉图尔（法国哲学家、人类学家、社会学家）
本书选用松茸做为透镜，检视当代的环境历史、全球商品生产供应和科学。伴之以韵味十足的散文体，尖锐而透彻的智识，持续的创造力和原创性，作者以崭新而深刻的方式串联起各个迥异的主题，跨越了数量惊人的多种领域。本书注定成为经典之作。——迈克尔·多芬（美国耶鲁大学社会生态学、人类学教授）
科学家和艺术家深知，对于一个庞大主题的掌握之道，通常在于近距离观察该主题的细小面向，进而从中揭露全貌。我们从雀鸟的嘴喙形状得以见到整体的演化。于是，通过对松茸这个迷人菌菇的近距离观察，作者探讨生态危机如何发生，又为何持续。她以透彻分析批判过度粗略的简化论；而对于人类处境现况，她则以思考理性和人性行为的可能，取代恐慌的反应。在一个急迫且凶猛的遭遇可能盖过人类理智的处境下，她提供了世人一种真切的深思方法。——厄休拉·勒古恩（ 美国科幻文学、女性主义、儿童文学作家 ）

How far apart are humans from animals—even the “vampire squid from hell”? Playing the scientist/philosopher/provocateur, Vilém Flusser uses this question as a springboard to dive into a literal and a philosophical ocean. “The abyss that separates us” from the vampire squid (or vampire octopus, perhaps, since Vampyroteuthis infernalis inhabits its own phylogenetic order somewhere between the two) “is incomparably smaller than that which separates us from extraterrestrial life, as imagined in science fiction and sought by astrobiologists,” Flusser notes at the outset of the expedition.
Part scientific treatise, part spoof, part philosophical discourse, part fable, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis gives its author ample room to ruminate on human—and nonhuman—life. Considering the human condition along with the vampire squid/octopus condition seems appropriate because “we are both products of an absurd coincidence . . . we are poorly programmed beings full of defects,” Flusser writes. Among other things, “we are both banished from much of life’s domain: it into the abyss, we onto the surfaces of the continents. We have both lost our original home, the beach, and we both live in constrained conditions.”
Thinking afresh about the life of an “other”—as different from ourselves as the vampire squid/octopus—complicates the linkages between animality and embodiment. Odd and strangely compelling, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis offers a unique posthumanist philosophical understanding of phenomenology and opens the way for a nonphilosophy of life.

本书为“媒介域联盟”读书会专家领读内容的总结整理。所选的书目为媒介与技术领域最经典的著作，这些书既贴近当下国内外研究前沿，又具有一定难度，因而邀请的领读人都为国内外该领域最具有影响力的专家学者，他们有的就是该书的作者或者译者，抑或多年从事该领域研究的学者，力求贴近原著，对经典著作的原文进行系统而扎实的解读，同时深入浅出，以引领新闻传播学科发展，引导研究者或者学生快速进入该领域，并建构系统的知识体系。
虽然传播学近年来才开始严肃地关注媒介技术的问题，但是其他领域对技术与媒介的哲学思考由来已久，哲学、文学、人类学等领域积累了大量的思想资源。阅读这些经典和准经典，可以帮助传播学找到属于自己的视角与核心问题。
——刘海龙（中国人民大学新闻学院教授）
选书视野开阔，诠释颇显新意，讨论紧跟前沿，问答推动深思，《媒介与技术研究经典导读》（第一辑）值得细读。
——刘永谋（中国人民大学哲学院教授）
媒介与技术同为存在的居间者，亦是无远弗届的体系和装置，《媒介与技术研究经典导读》所开拓的思想空间，让媒介域和技术域百般交缠，尽显世界之暧昧与繁复。
——段伟文（中国社会科学院哲学所研究员）
今天，媒介技术的讨论频繁出现在中国重要新闻传播学院的课堂，而始终引领讨论方向的是以吴璟薇、张磊、章戈浩、袁艳、曾国华等为代表的媒介物质性的领读者。
——胡翼青（南京大学新闻传播学院教授）