- Media is the plural form of medium.
- The dictionary defines media as all the communication devices and channels of communication used to reach mass audiences.
- First use of media in 1927, perhaps abstracted from mass media (1923, a technical term in advertising), pl. of medium in particular when used as an "intermediate agency," or a ‘carrier’ a sense first found c.1600.
Our medium specificity is that we are biological creatures. Organic in nature, we have a close genetic connection to the animal world.
The Specificity of Homo Sapiens
- A large brain
- Most of the sense organs located at the top end and facing forwards
- Long throat, small mouth, flexible tongue and lips
- An upright stance that frees the arms from any walking duties and allows the eyes to see further
- Hands with mobile thumbs and fingers that allow for fine grip and rotation from the wrist
Seeing Glasses
Telescopes
Magnifying glasses
Hearing aids
Definition - Medium specificity is the view that the media associated with a given art form (both its material components and the processes by which they are exploited) entail specific possibilities for and constraints on representation and expression, and this provides a normative framework for what artists working in that art form ought to attempt.
An artwork, in order to be successful, needs to adhere to the specific stylistic properties of its own medium.
“Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1776
Reshaping ourselves:
If we are defined by our physical and mental limitations, by extending these we change the definition of ourselves.
“Electronic technology is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal lives”. MM
“Print technology fostered a process of specialism and detachment”. MM
Until writing was invented we lived in acoustic space. This was a world of emotion,… speech was the social chart of this bog. MM
MM - Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage 1967
“The alphabet created forgetfulness” Socrates Phaedrus
Social Extentions
Social [knowledge] building as a creative process of knowing will be collectively extended to the whole of human society (McLuhan 1964) Mobile phone networks, Facebook, Twitter
Where are we going?
The convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science is transforming global society. Technological convergence is beginning to define the way societies interact and organise themselves.
The new technologies that convergence produces have immense consequences for global security, communications, surveillance, health, ecosystems, bio genetics and the prolongation of life. And as with every new technology, new marginalised groups (the ‘have nots’) are being created.
In particular, cybernetics – the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things – is having a revolutionary impact on education and culture, on genetic research and evolving bio technologies, on food production and the health of people. New applications are being developed that not only contest previous theories, but may also change the very nature of human self-understanding and the social relationships that sustain it.
Science fiction will become science fact, we may in future become an extension of the media itself.
Stelios Arcadious/ - Ear.
'Performance artists are known for pushing the bounderies, but one Australian has astonished his contemporaries by having a third ear implanted onto his arm.
The Cypriot-born eccentric Stelios Arcadious spent 10 years searching for a surgeon willing to perform the controversial operation.' - Mail Online.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-487039/Artist-implants-ear-arm.html
Robot Arm
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