Zulu Time, a National Film Board of Canada Film (1999)

09Jan23

Best known as the amicable Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto when this film was made, Derrick de Kerckhove is at the core of a world think-tank dedicated to probing the rapid changes of our global village. The documentary Zulu Time follows this “wired man” in his globe-trotting career as media prophet and probes into some of the most fascinating questions confronting us in our new electronic galaxy. As the spiritual inheritor of McLuhan’s thought, de Kerckhove lives in perpetual oscillation between himself and his double, Marshall McLuhan, with whom he has become publicly identified and virtually assimilated.

Directed by Jonny Silver – 1999 | 52 min | for the National Film Board of Canada

Derrick de Kerckhove is the former director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto. He received his PhD. in French Language and Literature  from the University of Toronto and a Doctorat du 3e cycle in Sociology of Art from the University of Tours. From 1972 to 1980 he was an associate of the Centre for Culture and Technology and worked with Marshall McLuhan for over ten years as translator, assistant, and co-author.

He has worked on two collections of essays on McLuhan, culture, technology and biology, namely Understanding 1984 (UNESCO, 1984) and McLuhan e la metamorfosi dell’uomo (Bulzoni, 1984). Other publications include The Alphabet and the Brain (Springer Verlag, 1988), La civilisation vidéo-chrétienne (Feltrinelli, 1991), both books on the impact of the alphabet on mind and society, research taken further in Brainframes: Technology, Mind and Business (Bosch & Keuning, 1991). The Skin of Culture (Somerville Press, 1995) is a collection of essays on the new electronic reality. Connected Intelligence (Somerville, 1997) introduced his research on new media and cognition. The Architecture of Intelligence was conceived and supported by and for networks. His most recent book, McLuhan for Managers, in collaboration with Mark Federman, was published in September 2003. He was Professor in the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Naples Federico IIwhen this film was made. (Source: http://tinyurl.com/2s4y86s3

Derrick de Kerckhove

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