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The Skin of Culture is a bold and
highly original vision of the electronic media and the nature
of reality in a world increasingly wired to technology.
It proposes that:
- we are already in a new age
- democracy is outmoded and must be re-designed
to reflect how technology affects power structures
- the electronic media have extended our
psychology as well as our nervous systems and our bodies
- our planet is poised on the verge of
either fragmentation or globalization
- art must redress science and reclaim
technology
- television is a projection of our emotional
unconscious
- television violence actually hits us
physically
- our sense of touch is becoming our dominant
electronic modality
- virtual reality will soon eliminate the
gap between an idea and its actualization
- we will soon be wearing our machines
- electronic media are reversing the effects
of language, literacy and the alphabet, and this might
be a good thing
- we are about to create a collective mind
that will exceed the capabilities of any individual human
Best known as the erudite and irreverent
director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology
at the University of Toronto, for over two decades Derrick
de Kerckhove has been at the eye of the dramatic debate
about the ultimate effects of communications and media technology.
The Skin of Culture
provides an overview of de Kerckhove's research and speculations
and, for the first time, lays out the breadth and profundity
of his vision. Building on the work of Marshall McLuhan,
de Kerckhove has amplified and deepened some of McLuhan's
insights, as well as developing his own original and provocative
theories. In this book, his first major Canadian publication,
he demonstrates wht he is Canada's media prophet laureate.
Derrick de Kerckhove is Professor in
the Department of French and Director of the McLuhan Program
in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.
His close association during the seventies with Marshall
McLuhan as translator, assistant and co-author, gave de
Kerckhove privileged access to the inner workings of this
century's pre-eminent media philosopher.
Christopher Dewdney, who compiled and
edited this collection, is a Canadian writer as well as
media commentator on culture and technology.
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