Slides of my presentation at the McLuhan Galaxy, Barcelona May 2011

1. Ground-making. The Medium As Environment CARLO PERONI BARCELLONA MAY2011

2. Aims of the Paper Considering the media concept as a theoretical device Developing a conceptual analysis Proposing some concepts to set a new cultural framework

3. Presentation’s Structure role of the media theory interpretation of the medium as environment concepts for an ecological approach

4. Section 1 ‘the content of any medium is another medium’ ‘the message of any medium or technology is the change that it introduces into human affairs’ McLuhan, Understanding media

5. Local Theories

6. Meta-theory Media theory is a meta-theory of communication Environments created by the interactions in the media system

7. Minimal definition of medium

8. Section 2 Summarazing the medium is: a theoretical proposal that explains the effects of technology on the social body a real space of communication becoming environment and, as such, can be experienced, occupied and changed

9. Opposition

10. Prosecution

11. Nature…

12. …Technology [we used to have] the human world or artifice on one hand and nature on the other remained two distinctly separate entities. Arendt

13. Unchained nature Today we have begun to "create," as it were, that is, to unchain natural processes of our own (…), and instead of carefully surrounding the human artifice with defenses against nature's elementary forces, keeping them as far as possible outside the man-made world, we have channeled these forces, along with their elementary power, into the world itself. Arendt

14. No opposition

15. Section 3 Hybridization is the interpenetration of one medium by another whenever two cultures, or two events, or two ideas are set in proximity to one another, an interplay takes place, a sort of magical change. The more unlike the interface, the greater the tension of the interchange McLuhan

16. Hybridization electric hybridization: the invasion of traditional environment by electric technologies a community of people and and the electric environment they occupy create a psycho-ecology populated by intelligent actors a psycho-ecology is an intelligent environment that behaves as a whole, manifesting a psychic depth.

17. Making aware It has now been explained that media, or the extensions of man, are "make happen" agents, but not "make aware" agents. The hybridizing or compounding of these agents offers an especially favorable opportunity to notice their structural components and properties. The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelation from which new form is born (...). The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them on our senses. McLuhan

18. The Ground

19. Conclusions world is more than just a physical environment, a "nature" transformed by the presence of human artifacts variety of levels actors can inhabit simultaneously different levels it is not possible to establish a hierarchy where a level (for example, the material one) is more helpful in foundation than others

20. CARLO PERONI BARCELLONA MAY2011 Mail: carlo00peroni@gmail.comTwitter: @freakycharlie