It is no coincidence that many of the new theorists of technology and telesis are based in California—ever on the edge of tomorrow, but also host to the primary commercial market for digital imagery: the movie industry. The hybrid members of the digerati can present different faces to the world depending on the venue: artist, theorist, computer scientist, professor, robotics engineer, program designer, or supplier. A hefty cadre of these transprofessionals work and think from the San Francisco Bay area, a McLuhan unit’s distance away from the throbbing belly of the media beast, yet still proximate to vassal lords such as Marin County’s George (“Star Wars”) Lucas, and major fiefdoms such as Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. There’s nothing like capital to make visual culture seem compelling, and thus the vaguely named entity “new media” art has curators and historians of contemporary art scrambling to make sense of it all. Into this confusing stew, Peter Lunenfeld offers himself as a Ciceronian guide. Imposing his own critical distance by dint of hard work and an academic buffer zone, Lunenfeld runs the Institute for Technology and Aesthetics (what once would have been called the “computer art lab”) at the Art Center College...