"All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values."-M.M.
Originally released by Columbia Records in 1967, The Medium is the Massage, an audio translation of his insightful tome, seems oddly prophetic and absolutely timely today. Recently resurrected via the cd medium, this "cut-up" collage of McLuhan reading bits of his text with commentary supplied by a barrage of audio interventions is not unlike the Beatles "Revolution 9," a piece it predates.
An analysis of the media's role in creating our sense of "reality," it is difficult to not sense its profoundly prophetic point of view. Indeed, the media, a not so hidden persuader, massages us and prods us toward a mono-culture in which acquisition of EVERYTHING is the goal, the key to happiness.
This utterly artificial road-trip signposted by McLuhan's straight reading of his text in all its prescient glory is an aural provocation to critical thought and subsequent choices informed by human intelligence, a trait sorely missing from our present cultural discourse.
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