Very true … I guess braille is included here. But what struck me was the phrase “3D writing system” in the article. Cf. McLuhan on linear (i.e., 2D writing) systems.
Indeed. There also seemed to be at least a small group of researchers who are still looking for narratives, not just accounts. Perhaps there is still hope.
While I agree, given the actions of the Conquistadors (and all their follow-ups), if the microbes hadn’t been there to make it easy for them, I can’t help but think they’d have proceeded manually.
I have to review McLuhan as I studied him in a random way many years ago. Also studied Walter Ong on similar themes. Mc Luhan reading group might be fun. Years ago I read Archetype and Cliche , and The Meduim is the Message. He’s deep but also a pleasure to read. If you care to elaborate on McLuhan please do. He was full of surprises. I have yet to read The Guttenberg Gallaxy.
Wha??? I managed to read a book you haven’t yet ? Will wonders never cease
That is the book that takes linearity severely to task. That of course, would be the most yielding, I think, for a group read, as most people have had a lot of The Medium is the Message, both directly and indirectly.
Maybe we could do a chapter from that book? Something short for a Cafe. We could do a comparison with others we know of. I just got a new book The Marvelous Clouds, recommended by Douglas. The author reviews Heidegger and McLuhan, an odd couple, for sure. At any rate it might be fun to update with some of our own research here. As our conversations have started to complexify, I imagine we could take a look at media studies and our on line experiments. Seems that the Octavia Butler reading group has attracted a research study. Miranda, who is doing this study, will present some of her work soon. I think we need to do a study on ourown study/recreation practices. Are we detecting any patterns or meta-patterns? Have we learned anything? Can print culture find a new public?
This one made the cut (birthday’s are useful excuses for frugal Dougs to go all out)…a small piece from the ever-pulsating lifeform that is the recommended book list. @Michael_Stumpf is the fine fella that turned us onto the author John Durham Peters. Here is the intro to the introduction as a taste:
The time is ripe for a philosophy of media. And a philosophy of media needs a philosophy of nature. Media are not only devices of information; they are also agencies of order. They not only send messages about human doings and our relations with our ecological and economic systems; they are also, in the expanded sense of the media concept that I will argue for, constitutive parts of those systems. Humans and their crafts have entered into nature and have altered every system on earth and sea, and many in the sky, to the point that “nature,” understood as something untouched by humans, only exists on earth where humans have chosen to set it apart as “natural.” The human steering of nature, of course, does not guarantee smooth sailing, and stormy weather is blowing on the ship from several directions. In light of both the possible irreversible threat to our habitat by climate change and the explosion of digital devices, of both carbon overload in the atmosphere and superabundant data in the “cloud,” it is good to open again the relationship of media to nature. This book offers a philosophy of elemental media— the elements that lie at the taken- for- granted base of our habits and habitat— with special reference to the digital era.
I am new to this line of thought (though, like @achronon states, some of us newcomers probably have an indirect infusion of McLuhan, Bateson and kin) so wouldn’t mind exploring in this direction. @johnnydavis54 stated in the latest Butler session the possibility of exploring Haraway then Bateson. Walter Ong and McLuhan have been distant stars that i wouldn’t mind visiting…though I might have my head in the Clouds for now…
