Responses | Readings of Week 2
For this week, we read Marshal McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message and Howard Singerman’s Art Subjects.
Starting on The Medium is the Message, I really enjoyed the empowerment I recieved from it. What I mean by this is that this reading for me seemed to reveal some connections that justify the importance of human beings in a technological world where machines are getting more complex, and more human labor tasks are being passed down machines.
all media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical
–McLuhan, 26
I also very much enjoyed the way McLuhan spoke of time and of the trends of humanity that roll along with time; such as the increasing awareness of children, the increasing number of jobs that are being employed by machines, and the inherent anthropocentric constructions of media, and technology (the extension of the central nervous system). Lastly on McLuhan, I enjoyed the discussion of the human “sensoreum” when it comes to technological media. As a person interested in communication, one of my biggest issued is towards information devices such as the ipad, pigeon-holing the human sensorium to strictly vision and hearing. I would like to propose that we human beings push for information devises that all people can enjoy. I would like to see tablet devices that can not only manipulate light and sound, but that can manipulate form to produce dynamic tactile information; this way, the blind can too be apart of the dynamic information world and will not have to resort to reading static braille that cannot change (information wise) as fast as a monitor displaying text can.
When it came to my personal interest of communication, McLuhan was an illuminating read. On the other hand, when it comes to the topic of the distinction between art in academia, and design in academia, I think Singerman is a great source of historical information to start researching from. Ranging over not only a timeline of art coming into academia, but also ranging over the discourses in the arts’ existence and place very stimulating. Alas in uncovering such information, yes I have more knowledge, but I am not entirely sure of why there is a divide between the school of fine art and design at ucla. Of course I understand why Bauhaus would be a separate institution from a painter’s guild so to speak. But in the case of UCLA’s School of Arts and Architecture in particular, the only difference that I can recognize on the surface between the fine arts major and the design media arts major is that in instruction more software is used and taught in the design media arts curriculum. Other than the disproportion between how much software is incorporated into the student’s curriculum, I believe (from shallow observation) that both majors are interested in relatively the same ideas; of which mainly, how can we ensure that these students leave hear equipped with the optimal means of communicating an idea through various forms of representation. From here on, I guess my job in this course is to discontinue the shallow observation, and begin to swim into the depths of the majors’ divide. Hello DMA 199. =)
