London
A GURU, that鈥檚 what the information technology revolution needs鈥攕omeone
to make sense of it all, to put it into perspective. The Canadian media-studies
luminary Marshall McLuhan is one candidate. The only problem is that he鈥檇 been
dead for ten years when the Internet took off.
Today, McLuhan鈥檚 thoughts on the media seem more insightful than ever. He is,
however, more discussed than read, so HardWired have done us a favour in
reissuing two digitally remastered versions of his most accessible books,
coauthored with the graphic designer Quentin Fiore.
Advertisement
The Medium is the Massage, first published in 1967, is as
stimulating a coffee-time read as you鈥檙e likely to come across. It鈥檚 a
characteristically gnomic and imaginative review of the media and interfaces
between them, and Fiore鈥檚 graphics are almost as striking as McLuhan鈥檚 text. The
title, by the way, is a typical McLuhanesque play on words: the media, he
believes, 鈥渨ork us over completely鈥�, like a massage.
McLuhan鈥檚 War and Peace in the Global Villageappeared a year later
and is harder going although just as rewarding in the end. Here, he examines the
modern history of war, which he argues is 鈥渁 sizeable component in the
educational industry鈥�. Bizarre? Yes, but if you bear with him, he has a way of
making epigrams like this perfectly plausible, even profound. He鈥檚 like a
technologically obsessed Oscar Wilde, without the wit.
McLuhan鈥檚 influence is palpable in all the other books here, especially
The Soft Edge, Paul Levinson鈥檚 thoughtful and well-documented history of
the IT revolution. He covers his topic in under 200 pages and still has room for
some plausible futurology. This will be a valuable text for the growing army of
media-studies students.
I doubt whether many of them will have the time or patience to read David
Whittle鈥檚 hefty Cyberspace. This is a pity, as the author has done a
laudable job of taking a look at the social issues that arise as we spend more
time online. You can鈥檛 fault Whittle鈥檚 comprehensiveness; nor can you help but
wish he had something of McLuhan鈥檚 pith and flair. By aiming to cater for both
experts and novices, Whittle has produced something that will please
neither.
Less ambitious but more successful is Steven Holtzman鈥檚 Digital
Mosaics, which covers an aspect of cyberspace that is only rarely
explored鈥攊ts aesthetics (a topic apparently unfamiliar to the book鈥檚 cover
designer). As McLuhan foresaw, new media have opened up new interactive worlds
for artists and designers, enabling them to think and create in novel ways. As
he points out, a digital work of art is infinitely reproducible (there鈥檚 no
鈥渙riginal鈥�), and yet ephemeral. We are left impressed, but wondering if digital
art could ever have its own Rembrandt.
Holtzman argues that in the future, digital technology will expand the
languages of human expression, enabling us to find the soul of digital culture.
Yet, according to Jeff Zaleski鈥檚 Soul of Cyberspace, it already exists
among the Web鈥檚 numerous spiritual sites. He takes us on a cybertour and,
following interviews with metaphysicians and critics of cyberspace, he invites
us to consider the implications of cyberworship.
For most of us, when we are in front of our PC screen, spiritual
contemplation comes less naturally than the straightforward pursuit of
enjoyment. In Joystick Nation, J. C. Herz gives us the first popular
history of electronic entertainment, that is, computer games. She is well
qualified to write such a history, having held a joystick before she could read
and never having relinquished the habit. She concludes that 鈥渧ideo games are
perfect training for life in fin-de-si猫cle America鈥�.
Herz鈥檚 homework has borne fruit in this comprehensive, lovingly researched
history. Despite all her efforts, she doesn鈥檛 persuade us that video games have
any intellectual significance at all. Yet we can be pretty convinced that they
do鈥攂y returning to the evergreen works of McLuhan. As the absent guru of
the IT revolution, his influence remains pervasive.