Technology and Visual Culture are implicitly linked in a causal relationship. In a sense technology and its advances drives the way we understand the visual that permeates our culture. From the spectacular magic lanterns of the 18th century to the emergence of virtual reality, technology has mitigated how we see, and thus how that sight is consumed by our culture. Visual Culture enables us to understand the implications of the technology of seeing. This site is a beginning research to determine the link between how technology has formed, or helped to form Visual Culture. It is by no means an authoritative text, nor a complete tome, but rather a beginning dialogue on how Visual Culture and technology have interacted each other.
The site is laid out chronologically by the texts. That is the text is the marker for the chronological organization. Each year from 1985 to 2005, prescient texts from Visual Culture explore how technology is manifest and affect our culture. By using the text for the organization system, rather than the technologies themselves, Visual Culture becomes the essential and defining issue on this site rather than the technology. It is not so much about technology as it is about how technology has informed Visual Culture. Thus, the implications of emerging technologies are seen not through the qualities inherent in the technology, but rather through how that technology affects Visual Culture. Furthermore, this is not every Visual Culture text that tackles technology during this time period, but rather the texts reflect the impact of technology on our systems for seeing.
Upon clicking on each year, the specific texts of interest are summarized on the left. Images of the technology are on the right as well as links to the author and noteworthy external sites that will help clarify the text. To navigate back to the home page, hit the back button or the title. If the year has more than one text, scroll down to view the next text.