As McLuhan foresaw, the expanding ubiquity of digital media is reshaping the very fabric of society. What matters are not the (so-often fetishized) technologies, digital and social media, patterns of communication, and effects of information on society. What matters are the ways we respond.
Probes
How will we fashion discourse, community, culture, authority & expertise? What will be the cartographies of learning, responsibility, and compassion in this digitally mediated landscape? What will happen to learning, to inquiry, to critical intellectual debate? Will it continue to be subserved by the university? What are the effects of technology on culture, on knowledge, on humanity? What, if any, implications does this have on the very idea of ‘University’ in the 21st Century?
To high speed change no adjustment is possible, we become spectators only and must escape into understanding.” – Marshall McLuhan in a 1960 essay on jukeboxes.
Join DesignMeets on July 21st for birthday cake, drinks and conversation at the McLuhan Coach House, to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan in the very place where he held his legendary Monday night seminars. We’ll be exploring the points of collision between the probes (listed above) and the design community.
Date: Thursday July 21st
Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Place: McLuhan Coach House, 39a Queen’s Park Crescent East (tucked in behind the Faculty of Law building, in the parking lot)
RSVP: designmeets-mcluhan100.eventbrite.com
Format: Upon registration, each guest will receive a McLuhan Probe, for an optional 2-minute reflection/contemplation/riff to be discussed at the event.
About McLuhan100
2011 marks the centenary of Marshall McLuhan’s birth. Toronto’s famous citizen—our very own Renaissance Man—has become an international emblem of unleashed creativity, uninhibited connectivity, unforgettable genius. With Toronto under the focus of international gaze, Toronto’s McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto) has joined forces with the City of Toronto – Economic Development and Culture and Mozilla under the banner of McLuhan100, to celebrate McLuhan, his theories and his role in the emergence of our great international metropolis. McLuhan100 has been financially assisted by the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, the City of Toronto-Economic Development and Culture, and Mozilla Foundation. Details of other McLuhan100 events for 2011 can be found at www.mcluhan100.ca
Follow us on twitter @McLuhan100.
Join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toronto-ON/McLuhan-Program-in-Culture-and-Technology-UofT/136948513030620