McLuhan 1993

Directed by Richard Kerr

In "McLuhan", Kerr recontextualizes a "question and answer period" for design students delivered by media theorist Marshall McLuhan at Sherdian College in 1975. Operating from McLuhan's own aphorism "the medium is the message," Kerr combines footage of the address with two scrolling texts in the borders, in one showing an asynchronous transcript that weaves around McLuhan's dialogue, and in another, reinforcing McLuhan's talking points like a ticker on cable news. It has the effect of sharply reconceptualizing the semantic and rhetorical values of the lecture in particular, yet also provides a fascinating perspective on McLuhan's own ideas and intellectual form of address.