New media: Ancient signs of literacy, modern signs of tracking

This essay briefly discusses the development of new media, starting with its origins in the ancient science of tracking by hunter-gatherers; then jumping forward to the electrical and electronic ages when new technologies were developed from computers that had the effect of immersing viewers within interactive mediated and electronically tracked environments. Amongst the early scholars briefly discussed are Arthur C Clarke, Marshall McLuhan, Gene Youngblood, and Teilhard de Chardin, some of whom drew philosophical inspiration from China. Our essay threads the conceptual trajectories enunciated by these visionaries through the analogue to the digital age. The often forgotten early history of the new media is briefly recovered in a period when new software and technologies are appearing by the hour. The metaphor that will be applied is the idea of ‘tracking-as-reading’, tracking-as-leaving footprints, and tracking-the-future.