Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06586_Field_TCUM T151.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 915b | 16 lines

forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what
would happen if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely,
exact information of how to rearrange one’s psyche in order to
anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.
Would we, then, cease to look at works of art as an explorer
might regard the gold and gems used as the ornaments of
simple nonliterates?

     At any rate, in experimental art, men are given the exact
specifications of coming violence to their own psyches from
their own counter-irritants or technology. For those parts of
ourselves that we thrust out in the form of new invention are
attempts to counter or neutralize collective pressures and
irritations. But the counter-irritant usually proves a greater
plague than the initial irritant, like a drug habit. And it is here
that the artist can show us how to “ride with the punch,”