The Waldorf Hotel
·
Thursday, May 26, 2011, 8-11:00pm
Posted 1 year ago
· 8 participants
On Thursday May 26, esteemed author and visual artist Douglas Coupland will be hosting an interactive presentation on Marshall McLuhan and YouTube at The Waldorf Hotel.
Marshall McLuhan knew exactly what the Internet was going to be… the only thing he didn’t know is what it was actually going to look like. It’s why so much of what he said and wrote in the 1960s and 1970s alienated critics.... [read more]
On Thursday May 26, esteemed author and visual artist Douglas Coupland will be hosting an interactive presentation on Marshall McLuhan and YouTube at The Waldorf Hotel.
Marshall McLuhan knew exactly what the Internet was going to be… the only thing he didn’t know is what it was actually going to look like. It’s why so much of what he said and wrote in the 1960s and 1970s alienated critics. He was trying to be poetic and theoretical about what we now simply call interfaces, links and apps. And now, from the hindsight of 2011, we can surf, via YouTube, our rich collective consciousness as it finally revealed itself online. Our collective being takes the form of cute cat videos, videos of Japanese devastation, mid-East political revolution, trampoline disasters and… well, would Marshall have been horrified or fascinated? Probably both. Coupland, with the global success of his recent biography of McLuhan (You Know Nothing of My Work! James Atlas & Co., NYC) can offer us a more precise look at ourselves via the ultimate manifestation of the global village, YouTube. Expect a back-and-forth experience between the audience, Coupland and the world itself.
