Jul. 13, 2011 - Issue #821: The Beer Issue

Revue

The medium is more

Tribute to Marshall McLuhan offers playful interpretations

Although Marshall McLuhan is a household name for the CBC-listening set, his ideas about how technology and media shapes our lives have faded from niche ubiquity, beyond his famous lines, "The medium is the message," and, "Global village." In honour of the 100th anniversary of McLuhan's birth, Latitude 53 and curator Aidan Rowe have on offer an exhibition of artwork inspired by the visionary thinker.

At first look, it is impossible not to notice how this show made the challenging L-shaped gallery space work to its advantage, seamlessly applying strong design skills to the construction of an art exhibition. Beyond energizing the gallery space and setting up a clear flow through the room through well-made art placement decisions, Rowe's use of quotations around the room aids the McLuhan rookie in finding a way into the artworks' theory-based conceptual centres. However, despite the exemplary strengths found in the exhibition design, the selected artwork is not always able to do more for its audience than looking like it belongs in the space.

That being said, the works that are able to meet the challenge of taking on the complexity and nuance of McLuhan do so brilliantly. Amanda RT Thomson's "Great Journeys of our Times" transposes historic North American journeys through the filter of a program like Google Maps' directions. The middle of three works on paper, "The incredible 1804 – 1806 journey of Lewis and Clark, in which these heroic men led an expedition and found their way from Missouri, to the West Coast ... in 129 parts" is broken down into starting point, ending point, total distance, total estimated time and the concise directions to get there. This cold, computer-generated structure is a startling and humorous contrast to the historic narrative of heroism conventionally applied to Lewis and Clark and their journey.

The stripping bare of their pilgrimage to the West Coast through the unsentimental information spit out of a direction-generating program is at once funny and unsettling. Thomson's absolute removal of narrative from the epic journeys, with the exception of each work's title, calls into question what happens to phenomenological experience or memory of our own epic journeys when sifted through technology.

Meaning as negotiable is also explored in the interactive design work by Master of Design student Cindy Coldwell. "Entitle" asks gallery visitors to scan the provided barcode or visit entitle.ca to rename artwork in the exhibition space and share it online via their smart phone or laptop. This work affirms personal interpretation of artwork, encouraging viewers to become participants and share their appraisal of works in the gallery. In addition, this work speaks to the soft empowerment that the Internet allows through the provision of space for somewhat anonymous expression and opinionating.

These are just a couple of the works that shine in providing critical, playful art and design interventions in conversation with McLuhan's ideas, in spite of sharing space with works more vacant in meaning. On the whole, this exhibit is definitely worth a visit, providing opportunities to explore relationships with technology and media for the McLuhan expert and rookie alike.
 

Until Sat, Jul 23
Spaces and Places: Visioning McLuhan at 100
Curated by Aidan Rowe
Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus