READING: Introductions & Chapter One of Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan
‘Content follows form’ ‘Medium is the message’ ‘We become what we behold’

McLuhan was a radical mind in his time and Lapham’s introduction from the 1990s contextualized work. I enjoyed reading McLuhan’s piece—his ideas have a prescience on the role of media similar to that of Vannevar Bush’s ideas of technology in the 1940s.

Lewis H. Lapham in the MIT introduction to Understanding Media, identifies Marshall McLuhan as the first to accurately introduce a vernacular to discuss the state of the media in contemporary times. Lapham provides a historical context for McLuhan’s book, and the role both the author and the book played in the 1960s. He discusses how McLuhan’s writing addressed the rapidly changing culture that was in a state of flux, as altered by new technologies or media. Lapham talks about the public opinion’s and the academy’s fickle perception of McLuhan’s work over time. He cites the academic establishments rejection of McLuhan’s theories at the time of their publishing, and how the voices of 1970s pop culture, who once embraced his ideas a few years earlier—dismissed his work as a product of the 1960s. Not until the rise of the internet and email in the 1990s was McLuhan recognized again as having such foresight, citing examples of how new technologies have shaped the way a user or a culture thinks, as exemplified throughout history (i.e. movable type/electricity). Lapham defends McLuhan’s approach as one that ‘talks about media as ‘make-happen agents,’ not as ‘make-aware agents’ and he sings McLuhan’s praises having seen his theories realization in his own lifetime. Lapham breaks McLuhan’s thoughts down to lists similarly to how Lapham sees tv as a poetic vehicle—a then and now of sorts. Furthermore, Lapham identifies McLuhan’s belief that the unifying quality of networks and media would unite the ‘global village into a single consciousness,’ and likened the current role of fame and celebrity to that of mythology in ancient times.

In McLuhan’s own introduction he discusses the technological simulation of consciousness, an ‘ethical robot‘, and calls for the understanding of any of the extensions of the senses as they affect the ‘psychic and social’ make-up. There is a sense of urgency in his writing, which reflects his perception of a new simultaneous action/reaction through the implementation of new technologies. He states that this work is an effort to better understand these new media in seeking intelligibility. He cites that with our new understandings we have a new means which allows for ‘unheard voices to be involved in our lives.’ This is a point that is currently perceived as being realized as compared to the past, and at the same time is something still very much unrealized.

In the first chapter, McLuhan discusses the extensions of self and defines the new personal/social consequences of the ‘message of media.’ He explores how overloocked media has been throughout history. He notes that the ‘old world view’ perceived that media could only add or subtract from what we already are as opposed to transforming what we are and how we think. Interestingly, he presents a Western historical basis for his argument citing Western literature, psychology, economics and painting.

Digital Art, Christine Paul

‘techno-art’: Christine Paul examines how technological developments have offered new forms and new ways to experience art. She defines digital art as art that ‘employs technology as its very own medium as opposed to art that uses technology as a tool.’ She also mentions that this genre is rooted in a connection between art/science and technology and art history. She discusses important computational researchers and writers such as Norbert Wiener and Vannevar Bush, and also talked about the beginnings of the conceptual framework for the internet and the mouse (an extension of the hand). Paul broke down the orientation of digital art in relation to Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art—-both as forms that inherently depend upon formal concepts, rules, procedures and instructions. This was the most interesting aspect of the introduction to me. I was surprised to learn about EAT which seems similar to UCSD’s approach uniting engineering and art.
Paul continued the timeline highlighting a shift in the 1970s and 80s when more classically trained artists began working with digital art, creating a dynamic and interactive experience. She then went on to talk about the challenges of showing this type of art and how it has traditionally been in Art & Media Centers and Festivals—-until the beginning of this century. She pointed out that as a medium it poses challenges that have to do with conservation and archive-ability. I found her examination of the role of internet art as a public art for public space, versus a form that is limited to the private space very interesting—and a bit dated with the augmentation of wireless networks today.

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