WYSIWYG

Frank Stella, Pagosa Springs, 1960, Copper metallic e lápis sobre tela, 252.3 X 252.1 cm., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.

Of all the Internet searches that end up at the McLuhan Program website and weblog, the search for the meaning of the famous "McLuhan Equation" is the most frequent. Many people presume the conventional meaning for "medium" that refers to the mass-media of communications - radio, television, the press, the Internet. And most apply our conventional understanding of "message" as content or information. Putting the two together allows people to jump to the mistaken conclusion that, somehow, the channel supersedes the content in importance, or that McLuhan was saying that the information content should be ignored as inconsequential.

Foi assim, assumindo o simulacro que não conduz a McLuhan (1911-1980), que utilizámos o famoso "meme" The medium is the message (Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964), em cruzamento com a literalidade desejada por Frank Stella (1936) para a sua pintura. Mas de que falava McLuhan quando falava de "message" e de "medium" e equivalia os dois termos?

McLuhan tells us that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or pattern" that a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs." (McLuhan 8) Note that it is not the content or use of the innovation, but the change in inter-personal dynamics that the innovation brings with it. Thus, the message of theatrical production is not the musical or the play being produced, but perhaps the change in tourism that the production may encourage.
(...)
McLuhan defines medium for us as well. Right at the beginning of Understanding Media, he tells us that a medium is "any extension of ourselves." Classically, he suggests that a hammer extends our arm and that the wheel extends our legs and feet. Each enables us to do more than our bodies could do on their own. Similarly, the medium of language extends our thoughts from within our mind out to others.
(...)
But McLuhan always thought of a medium in the sense of a growing medium, like the fertile potting soil into which a seed is planted, or the agar in a Petri dish. In other words, a medium - this extension of our body or senses or mind - is anything from which a change emerges. And since some sort of change emerges from everything we conceive or create, all of our inventions, innovations, ideas and ideals are McLuhan media.
(...)
Thus we have the meaning of "the medium is the message:" We can know the nature and characteristics of anything we conceive or create (medium) by virtue of the changes - often unnoticed and non-obvious changes - that they effect (message.) McLuhan warns us that we are often distracted by the content of a medium (which, in almost all cases, is another distinct medium in itself.) He writes, "it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." (McLuhan 9) And it is the character of the medium that is its potency or effect - its message. In other words, "This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology."
(Mark Federman, What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?)

Cruzamentos multimédia

Jean Vigo, A Propos de Nice, França, 1930, fotograma

CINEMA E MATÉRIA: FILMOGRAFIA (por ordem cronológica)

1. Construtivismo

Jacob Protozanov, Aelita, URSS, 1924

Dziga Vertov, Человек с киноаппаратом - O Homem da Câmara de Filmar, URSS, 1929

László Moholy-Nagy, Lichtspiel: Schwartz-Weiß-Grau, Alemanha, 1930. Os Harvard University Art Museums oferecem, na excelente exposição "online" Extra Ordinary Every Day dedicada à Bauhaus (1919-1933), para além do filme de Moholy-Nagy, um video onde se vê o "Adereço de Luz para um Palco Eléctrico" a funcionar.

2. Duchamp, Dada e Surrealismo

Man Ray, Le Retour à la Raison, França, 1923

Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy, Ballet Mécanique, França, 1924

René Clair, Entr'Acte, França, 1923

Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Anémic Cinéma, França, 1926

Hans Richter, Vormittagsspuk, Alemanha, 1928

Germaine Dulac, La Coquille et le Clergyman, França, 1928

Man Ray, L'Étoile de Mer, França, 1928

Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Un Chien Andalou, França, 1929

Jean Vigo, A Propos de Nice, França, 1930

J.S. Watson Jr., Alec Wilder, Tomatos Another Day, EUA, 1930

Joseph Cornell, Lawrence Jordan, Thimble Theater, c.1938-1970

Quanto à música, consultem-se as entradas anteriores que dizem respeito ao tema:

Hoje: música nos "Cruzamentos" - dedicada aos futuristas e ao Ballet Mécanique de George Antheil.

Música, matéria e desordem: discografia (utilizada) - discografia, texto de Lyotard sobre Berio e alguns "links" (2006).

Notasomruído: música, matéria e desordem - discografia e links (2007).