„We may torture McLuhan, just like he tortured us.” – Derrick de Kerckhove

In collaboration with transmediale and the McLuhan in Europe 2011 initiative, the Embassy of Canada and its Marshall McLuhan Salon presents the second edition of McLuminations‚ on Thursday, October 20th, at 6 p.m.

The Embassy of Canada’s Marshall McLuhan Salon houses one of the most extensive publicly accessible archives of video documentation and original broadcasts featuring Marshall McLuhan. McLuminations is a series of performative screenings, where the Marshall McLuhan Salon’s archival video material is projected and inflected in a public conversation by selected special guests. McLuminations II will be presented and moderated by series curator Baruch Gottlieb and featuring McLuhan scholars Steffi Winkler and Martina Leeker.

Marshall McLuhan is often claimed to have heralded and lauded the role of ‘the artist’ as someone we should look to in order to understand our current age. But as we know with McLuhan, things are often not what they seem. Is McLuhan referring to himself when he speaks of ‘the artist’? Did McLuhan, a professor of English Literature, see or even refer to his work as art?

Is ‘the artist’ for McLuhan just a biological appendage of society (antenna) or does McLuhan endow the artist with some kind of critical faculty while “being of one’s time”? Does some criticality necessarily occur in the synthesis of this nervous information with material expression? Who is it that is supposed to understand something by observing the artist’s sensitive vibrations? Many critics of McLuhan challenge his determinism, his begrudging of any ‘individual’ agency. Is the material creation of art in itself some kind of conservative exercise in McLuhan, to decelerate the technological transformation of human society (juggernaut).?

This event will be in English and German. It will take place at the Marshall McLuhan Salon in the Embassy of Canada, Berlin. Admission is free, but places are limited, so please register beforehand on www.mcluhan-salon.de. It is advisable to have valid picture identification when entering the Embassy of Canada.

Address:
Marshall McLuhan Salon
Embassy of Canada, Berlin
Ebertstr. 14
10117 Berlin

www.mcluhan-salon.de
#mcluminations
#mcluhan2011eu