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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06806_Field_TCUM T371.txt
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1996-04-10
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modify it, or translate it into another medium (three
dimensions, for instance), the native fails to recognize it.
An anthropological film showed a Melanesian carver
cutting out a decorated drum with such skill, coordination, and
ease that the audience several times broke into applause—it
became a song, a ballet. But when the anthropologist asked
the tribe to build crates to ship these carvings in, they
struggled unsuccessfully for three days to make two planks
intersect at a 90-degree angle, then gave up in frustration.
They couldn’t crate what they had created.
In the low definition world of the medieval woodcut, each
object created its own space, and there was no rational
connected space into which it must fit. As the retinal
impression is intensified, objects cease to cohere in a space of