Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06714_Field_TCUM T279.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

difference between the motion picture and TV, or between a
Corvair and a Volkswagen, for this difference is not between
two visual spaces, but between tactile and visual ones. A tent
or a wigwam is not an enclosed or visual space. Neither is a
cave nor a hole in the ground. These kinds of space—the tent,
the wigwam, the igloo, the cave—are not “enclosed” in the
visual sense because they follow dynamic lines of force, like a
triangle. When enclosed, or translated into visual space,
architecture tends to lose its tactile kinetic pressure. A square
is the enclosure of a visual space; that is, it consists of space
properties abstracted from manifest tensions. A triangle
follows lines of force, this being the most economical way of
anchoring a vertical object. A square moves beyond such
kinetic pressures to enclose visual space relations, while
depending upon diagonal anchors. This separation of the visual
from direct tactile and kinetic pressure, and its translation into