Mixed Messages: Marshall McLuhan and the Moving Image
This program has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Co-presented by Penn Humanities Forum.
Marshall McLuhan is one of the most recognized cultural theorists of the 20th century. His books Understanding Media, The Guttenberg Galaxy, and The Medium is the Massage are landmark texts that distilled the rapid changes in technology, communication and philosophy in the increasingly global society of post-war America. As television became a popular medium throughout the 1960s, McLuhan recognized its potential for social transformation and conjured a utopian ideal that incorporated art, communication and technology.
Inspired by McLuhan and the advent of portable video cameras such as the Sony Portapak, artists set out to experiment with the burgeoning medium and reconfigure the seemingly one-directional effect of television. Active participants of the newly emerging media ecosystem include Nam June Paik, Les Levine, Steina and Woody Vasulka and groups such as USCO, Global Village and Raindance Corporation.
Mixed Messages is a thorough examination of the relationship between McLuhan’s ideas and the film and video art he inspired over the past 50 years. The program, which coincides with the centennial year of McLuhan’s birth, includes a free half-day panel discussion with media artists Peter d’Agostino, Tom Sherman, and Gerd Stern. The panel is moderated by Rebecca Cleman, Director of Distribution for Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and is free to the public.
The Medium is the Medium (excerpt)
dir. Fred Barczyk, US, 1969, video, 20 mins, color
Produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, The Medium is the Medium is one of the earliest and most prescient examples of the collaboration between public television and the emerging field of video art in the US. WGBH commissioned artists Allan Kaprow, Nam June Paik, Otto Piene, and Aldo Tambellini, to create original works for broadcast television. Their works explored the parameters of the new medium, from image processing and interactivity to video dance and sculpture.
US
dir. Jud Yalkut, US, 1966, 16mm, 16 mins, color
A poetic documentary of the USCO multimedia group, a pioneer art and technology commune of which the filmmaker was an active part. US centers on the building of the tabernacle of The Church of The Living God. A spiritual and aesthetic meditation environment that was both unique and groundbreaking, the Church was incorporated as a free church in the State of New York in Garnerville in 1966.
Turn Turn Turn
dir. Jud Yalkut, US, 1966, 16mm, 10 mins, color, sound by USCO
A kinetic alchemy of the light and electronic works of Nicolas Schoffer, Julio Le Parc, USCO, and Nam June Paik, this film is an exploration of the effect-versus-content thesis of Marshall McLuhan’s ‘the medium is the message/massage’. Turn Turn Turn, a film of the eye-shattering, flashing, rotating light sculptures programmed by USCO to Turn Turn Turn the popular song into a rich electronic fugue on the word NOW: Let’s take the OW out of NOW; let’s turn the NO out of NOW. – Film Quarterly
Plus additional video works:
Waiting for Commercials
dir. Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut, US, 1966-72 (re-edited 1992), video, 7 mins, color, sound
Facing a Family
dir. VALIE EXPORT, Austria, 1971, video, 5 mins, b&w, sound
Media Primer for Raindance
dir. Michael Shamberg, US, 1971, video, 16 mins, b&w, sound
Einstine
dir. Eric Siegel, US, 1968, video, 6 mins, color, sound
