Record Nr.

UNINA9910456306803321

Autore

Cavell Richard

Titolo

McLuhan in space : a cultural geography / / Richard Cavell

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2002
©2002

ISBN

1-281-99635-1

9786611996352

1-4426-7713-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (343 p.)

Disciplina

302.23092

Soggetti

Space and time

Space and time in art

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Sigla -- PREFACE. 'Space' in McLuhan -- PART ONE. SPACED -- CHAPTER ONE. A Short History of Space -- CHAPTER TWO. Mechanization and Its Discontents -- CHAPTER THREE. The Physics of Flatland -- CHAPTER FOUR. Prosthetic Aesthetics -- INTERFACE. The Intellectual as Vates -- PART TWO. SCAPED -- CHAPTER FIVE. Artiste de livres -- CHAPTER SIX. Visible Speech -- CHAPTER SEVEN. Art without Walls -- CHAPTER EIGHT. Borderlines -- POSTFACE. McLuhan in Space -- Notes -- Details of Sigla -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The first book to propose that Marshall McLuhan be read as a spatial theorist, McLuhan in Space argues that space is the single most consistent concept in McLuhan's vast and eclectic body of work. Richard Cavell demonstrates how McLuhan extended insights derived from advances in physics and artistic experimentation into a theory of acoustic space, which he then used to challenge the assumptions of visual space that had been produced through 500 years of print culture. The notion of acoustic space provided McLuhan with a heuristic probe of prodigious range, allowing him to examine critically the many social and cultural forms of contemporary media production. It also

enabled him to cross over intellectually from the purely theoretical realm into that of artistic production, where his interests in radical notions of spatial production were shared by a range of avant garde artists from bp Nichol to Glenn Gould, from John Cage to the Fluxus artists - an artistic milieu in which McLuhan increasingly came to situate his work. Cavell's book is the first to examine McLuhan's work in light of this artistic backdrop, and the first to examine his contribution to Canadian studies.