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Designing the Body the Human Body Design in Context to Aspects of Marshall Mcluhans Media Theory

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Designing the Body the Human Body Design in Context to Aspects of Marshall Mcluhans Media Theory Designing the body The human body design in context to aspects of Marshall McLuhans Media theory Matthias Lange, BAPD 2, Erasmus (KISD, Germany) Technologies and Consciousness: Mind, Matter, Media John Cussans Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design Cultural Studies Electives Programme Autumn 2006 Index 1. Introduction 2. Marshall McLuhan 2.1 Media is the Message 2.2 Extension of Man 2.3 Global Village 3. Development of human body design 3.1 Paradigm shift 4. Bodydesign & McLuhan 5. Conclusion Bibliography 2 1. Introduction Media theory is a young discipline which has its roots in journalistic and in other media theoretical approaches of different disciplines (e.g. literature, linguistics and sociology). Media theory focuses the term of the medium, which is however not certainly clear. There are many attempts to define the term medium and what it can mean, but a uniform definition can not be given. Our age is defined by new media, which represents a new challenge for defining its subject in media theory. Media theoretical reflections also play a central role in the discipline design and design research. For designing new media it is substantial to understand the effects and contexts of media and their connec- tion to society. This work tries to briefly describe a current scien- tific and social development from a design relevant point of view, considering the media theoretical theses of Marshall McLuhan. In the 1970ies and 1980ies a transition form industrial society to information society took place and “communicative networks” be- came more and more important. This development was accompa- nied by a couple of new technologies, which is changing the world into a “global village”. Today mankind lives more and more in an immaterialized and interlaced world but it is still bound to the ma- terial human body. A general conflict? This work tries to reflect this question and the development of the human body in relation to its changing environment. 3 2. Marshall McLuhan In the 1950ies Marshall McLuhan established many media theoreti- cal theses, which defined the understanding of media in a complete- ly new way. His work focuses the social effects of the spatial and temporal changes of perception caused by media. McLuhan thinks that we enter the “world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure” (McLuhan 1973:12) This means that the analysis of media could not take place by focus- ing the content but on an structural meta level. 2.1 Media is the message “Media is the message” is the headline of the first chapter of McLu- hans book “Understanding media” and it is maybe the most used dictum of him. From McLuhans point of view the most people consider its content while thinking of media. “Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the ma- chine, that was its meaning or message” (McLuhan 1973: 15) For McLuhan it’s the medium which is the message itself (“in terms of the ways in which the machine altered our reflections to one an- other and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or Cadillacs”). It does not matter which content is produced by the medium because the social effects remain the same. McLuhan focuses media in a new way and wants to make a “long- term” diagnosis. He understands media as things. And he describes the message of each media as a “change of scale of pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (McLuhan 1973: 16) It is the media “that shapes and controls the scale and form of hu- man association and action” 4 2.2 Extension of Man In his book “Understanding Media: The extension of Man” Mar- shall McLuhan develops the thesis that the mankind extends their bodies via mechanical and electrical technologies. Particularly the extension of the central nervous system is enabled by electronic technologies. “During the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space. Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolish- ing both space and time as far as our planet is con- cerned” (McLuhan 1973:11) In the introduction of his book McLuhan puts special attention on the fact that he wants to analyse some “principal extensions, togeth- er with some of their psychic and social consequences”, because he assumed that in the past too little attention was given to this topic. 2.3 Global Village For McLuhan the electronic network of the age of electricity repre- sents the central nervous system of mankind. According to this, an extension of man took place. Because time and space are vanishing more and more it’s possible to be in many places at the same time. Television and communication around the globe caused that the world becomes a “global village”. “As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a global village” (McLuhan 1973: 12f) 5 3. Origins of human body design In history the human body always played an important role in so- ciety. It was used for communication and to illustrate social status. Therefore it was usual to design the human body in particular ways. Most of this body designs had visual reasons and effects. In some indio tribes there is an old tradition to enlarge womens necks to illustrate their social position. Therefore “neck rings” are added frequently. The status of a woman rises according to the amount of neck rings and to the length of her neck. The Mursi (or Murzu) are an african nomadic ethnic group. The Mursi women are famous for wearing plates in their lower lips. These lip discs are made of clay. Girls are pierced at the age of 15 or 16. The earlaps are pierced in the same way. For the Mursi this rite is a beauty ideal. A large lipdisc is a symbol for the pride of the woman. (Mursi) Another form of designing the body in a visual way is the tattoo. Tattoos have a long history. The “glacier mummy” “Ötzi” for exam- ple had tattoos made of coal 5000 years ago. (Tattoo) 3.1 Paradigm shift Due to the rapid technological development of the 19th century the possibilities to “design” the human body changed. This can be illustrated by the following examples. During the whole human history people had problems with sight- when their getting older. But during a long time in history man- kind did not know anything of ways to improve sight. In the 9th century the Arabic scientist Ibn al-Haitam (965-1039) had the idea to support reading by a “reading stone”, a polished stone which was shaped like a lens. This stone enlarged the writings under it and made it easier for people to read. In the 16th century the monocle was developed and the glasses as we know them today were invented in the 18th century. (Glasses) 6 During the 19th century the development of glasses continued but as you can see in this example some kind of paradigm shift took place. First the contact lenses where developed, a seeing aid that was no longer visible for other people. And with the development of eye surgery it was no longer a body extension that was improved, but the body itself. In the 16th century the corset was invented in Europe to highlight the form of the female body. By the corset the hips were tied up and the breast was stressed. The corset was not unquestioned during this time. Some physicians represented the thesis that the corset would have harmful influence on the organs. Nowadays corsets are not very popular any longer, but the shape of the human body is remained to be a big topic in society. Cosmetic surgery for example is becoming popular more and more. E.g. in Germany there were over 11000 breast surgeries in 2005. 4. Body design & McLuhan Body is the message The handling of the human body changed during the time. McLu- han speaks about “Extensions of Man”, but nowadays the body i s getting the extension itself. That means that now the human body is becoming a media. The consequence of this development is that the human body loses his characteristics of a subject more and more and it will be changed to a uniformed ideal. It is very difficult to say which effect genetic manipulation will have on this development. But nowadays it is already possible to repair deformities of unborn chicks (Spiegel) and it is just a matter of time till the human body could be designed in every way. Extension of the extension The relation between the body and other media is also changing. McLuhan says that mankind extends their body via mechanical and electrical technologies. That means that the products/media around us are designed for human needs and the human body. But today it is possible to design the human body and as an indirect consequence also the human needs. The conclusion of this could be that the fusion of body and technology will proceed in a bidirectional way. 7 Body and global village Marshall McLuhan thinks that the world becomes a “global village” because time and space are vanishing. This means that also the de- mand on perception and the human body is changing. “Now that we live in an electric environment of information coded not just in visual but in other sensory modes, it’s natural that we have new percep- tions that destroy the monopoly of visual space” (McLuhan 2001: 7) Of course it is very difficult to describe the changes of the relation between the body and the “global village”.
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