Marshall McLuhan at the Canadian Cultural Centre

2011 marks the centenary of the birth of Herbert Marshall McLuhan. Mc Luhan grew into a literary and media icon of extraordinary renown ; no figure is more universally associated with the rise of media information and oour transformation into a digital society. 

The Canadian cultural centre presents from September 30 to November 16, two multimedia exhibitions dedicated to Marshall McLuhan showing a new technological portrayal turned into the future about this major intellectual figure of the 20th century.

“Through the Vanishing Point” from David Rokeby and Lewis Kaye

Canadian artists David Rokeby and Lewis Kaye visually and aurally constructed McLuhan’s personna. The exhibition illuminates the intellectual spirit of th egreat media prophet. As the framework fot their work the artists drew from McLuhan’s book “Through the Vanishing Point : Space in Poetry and Painting”, 1968, which explores the way electronic media fragments the homogenous experience of space. 

“Illuminated Manuscripts” from Robert Bean 

“Illuminated Manuscripts” is a project about writing, archives and photography. It emphasizes the figure/ground relationship that is physically inscribed on the surface of Marshall McLuhan’s documents and manuscripts. Bean contextualizes McLuhan’s writing process within a framework of obsolete electronic technologies. He presents a selection of recent photographs of outdated writing machines in the collection of the Canadian Science and Technology Museum—such as the telegraph, dictaphone, and typewriter—alongside new video works that animate 100 of McLuhan’s original documents from the collection of the Library and Archives Canada.

These exhibitions are shown in partnership with the Scotiabank CONTACT photography festival of Toronto and the Mc Luhan Program in Culture and Technology “Coach House Institute” at the University of Toronto