Multimedia: Not So New?

Can the roots of today's interactive new media art be traced to the thoughts of 19th century composer Richard Wagner? And did video artist Nam June Pail foresee a new breed of "global information art" back in 1984, long before Net art made its debut? Read the just-released "Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality" (W.W. Norton & Co.) and find out. A Web site (on artmuseum.net) compliments the book.