The Medium is the Massage Multiple Media Website

18Nov17

  

This unique website that is dedicated to Marshall McLuhan’s best-selling book is comprised of 6 sections:-
1. The Lecture, which offers an audio capture of Marshall McLuhan’s lecture as delivered on May 7, 1966, at The Poetry Center of the 92nd Street YM-YWHA for the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. McLuhan titled his lecture “The Medium Is the Massage”, a play on his famous aphorism, “the medium is the message”. You can hear the full lecture of 1 hour, 8 minutes by following this direct link: https://goo.gl/dtVDf2. This is followed by a large selection of quotes from the lecture, starting with these first 3:-
“I have been introduced quite recently as Canada’s revenge on the United States. You know, from the land of the DEW Line, the early-warning system.”

“[But, this is one of my themes tonight, as it were,] the artist as early-warning system for new media.”

“[Another main theme of course will be that] the medium is the massage and not the message—it really works us over, it really takes hold and massages the population in a savage way.”

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2. The Book which provides a large selection of quotes from the book “The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects” by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, and coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published in March 1967 and became a bestseller with a cult following. Reversing the usual publishers’ procedure, a hardcover volume of the book was published after the paperback. More info via Wikipedia.

“The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted.”

Direct link to this Book section: https://goo.gl/ZriLSt.
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3. The Film “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage”, an experimental documentary produced by Ernest Pintoff and Guy Fraumeni, narrated by actor Edward Binnes and broadcasted on NBC TV (19 March 1967). For more information see my posting on this blog at https://goo.gl/3uCk8f.

Here is the YouTube video of the film: 

Direct link to this Film section: https://goo.gl/hr7d1s.

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4. The Magazine 4th edition of the multimedia magazine Aspen (1967) designed by Quentin Fiore and edited by and devoted to sixties media visionary Marshall McLuhan. Voluminous documentation of “Aspen Magazine – The McLuhan Issue” its contents is available via ubu.com/aspen.

Some quotes from Aspen Magazine #4 on Marshall McLuhan:

“McLuhan was able to say ‘The medium is the message’ because he started from no concern with content.” — John Cage, “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)”

“A strange bond often exists among anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are.”— Marshall McLuhan

Direct link to the Magazine section: https://goo.gl/KkYG3Q.

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5. The Record (Audio) section contains the LP recording of “The Medium is the Massage” by Marshall McLuhan, released by Columbia Records in March 1967, conceived and coordinated by Jerome Agel, and produced by John Simon. Listen to Side A and Side B via ubu.com.

“Drop this jiggery-pokery and talk straight turkey.”— James Joyce, “Finnegans Wake”

“This last week was like a total breakdown.”— Franz Kafka, “Diaries”

“There ain’t no grammatical errors in a non-literate society.”— Marshall McLuhan, see also “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man”, p. 238

Direct link to the Record section: https://goo.gl/wr9jTi

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6. The Website section where all the quotes by Marshall McLuhan and others are listed from “The Medium is the Massage” (the lecture, the book, the film, the magazine and/or the record, single and remix).

“And the nun thanked the lad who replied: That’s all right Madame, any relative of Batman is a friend of mine!”

“The mass media are turning the globe into a village and catapulting 20th century man back to the life of the tribe.”— Marshall McLuhan

“AS MCLUHAN SAYS, EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE

—John Cage, “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)”

Direct link to the Website section: https://goo.gl/MmZgcB

 The Back Cover

Link to the Homepage: https://goo.gl/qVMYyS

Filed under: Academic, Audio, Featured Website, Ideas, Magazine, Media Ecology, Quotes, Video   |  2 Comments
Tags: books, communication, culture, ideas, media ecology, video