Holographic Visions

• The first and only book-length history of holography.
• Covers the full history of the subject up to the present day in meticulous detail, based on unprecedented archival research and interviews with pioneering holographers.
• Based on research supported by the American Institute of Physics, the British Academy, Carnegie Institute and the Shearwater Foundation.
• Devotes equal attention to the history of the subject, its expert communities and their products.
• Discusses the political and aesthetic currents that shaped the interdisciplinary nature of imaging science.
• Combines distinct disciplinary perspectives (history of science, philosophy of science, sociology of science, sociology of the professions, physics and cultural history) to provide a uniquely rounded and coherent analysis.

Holography exploded on the scientific world in 1964, but its slow fuse had been burning much longer. Over the next four decades, the echoes of that explosion reached scientists, engineers, artists and popular culture. Emerging from classified military research, holography evolved to represent the power of post-war physics, an aesthetic union of art and science, the countercultural meanderings of holism, a cottage industry for waves of would-be entrepreneurs and a fertile plot device for science fiction.

New working cultures sprang up to mutate holography, redefining its products, reshaping its audiences and reconceiving its applications. The outcomes included ever more sublime holograms and exquisitely sensitive measuring techniques - but also priority disputes, prurience and poisonous business rivalries.

New subjects cross intellectual borders, and so do their explanations. This book draws on the history and philosophy of science and technology, social studies, politics and cultural history to trace the trajectory of holography. The result is an in-depth account of how new science emerges. Based on unprecedented interviews with pioneer holographers and extensive archival research, it reveals how science, technology, art and wider culture are entwined in the modern world.

Readership: Scholars and educated laypersons concerned with the history, philosophy and social studies of science and technology. Holographers and enthusiasts of holography. Students of science, the history and sociology of technology, and the history, sociology and philosophy of science.