 |
| Early Portrait of professor Marshall McLuhan |
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was a media theorist who wrote a book called The Medium is a Massage. The infamous book title was a misprint of his original quote "the medium is a message". To understand the statement, we need to explain his definition of medium and message. In our society, we always separate technology and its contents into two different categories. Technology refers to television, telephone, electricity, and etc. Whereas the content refers to television program, speech from the telephone, messages on billboard with lights and etc. Medium in this case is the technology that carries the message, hence the medium. On the other hand, message is the content that came through the medium, hence the message. For McLuhan, there is indeed no difference between the two.
 |
| The gun replica was a cut-out from the book The Medium is a Massage |
Here is why: McLuhan believed that the content distribution is made possible by the medium. Without one, the content could never have been published. Thus the making of the medium is the beginning of a message and is a part of the content. Some people said that the 'content' (ie, TV programs) is what moves us forward, but McLuhan said otherwise. The technology is what moved us forward and it is the change in technology that shape the society.
 |
| A page from The Medium is a Massage |
I say, while that is very insightful and deep in a way, I don't agree with it totally. McLuhan claimed the absolute and ignore the 'content' (refereed above). I think it is the combination of both worlds. Side to side the technology and the content shapes up our society. Take Facebook for example, the making of it helps us to connect to other people. But to actually connect to one another, one needs to post pictures and messages. Otherwise, the website has no meaning. Even if the implementation of the website could not have been better, the lack of content will render the website useless.
After the book publication took off so well, he published an audio that contain a similar technique he used in his book. This is the visual recreation of it by celestial elff.
Great rumination on facebook and how without content it would not exist although the Net would. Making McLuhan's book into a paper gun gives further food for thought. Did you find the name of the artist who made that piece?
ReplyDelete