2011 is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Canadian media and communications visionary Marshall McLuhan. McLuhanites all over the world will be marking the anniversary in one way or another, and here in Europe transmediale festival and the Marshall McLuhan Salon of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin are producing a year-long programme of activity. The cultural network project McLuhan in Europe 2011 will explore, critique and celebrate McLuhan’s impact on European art and culture through a series of manifestations to occur in various locations, contexts and timeframes across Europe. While embracing and celebrating the relatively unwritten history of McLuhan in Europe, the events will also look at the development of contemporary media, tactile and mobile cultures, the politics of media culture in the context of the divided Europe and other themes that emerged out of McLuhan’s primary period of intellectual production.
The McLuhan in Europe 2011 project is seeking partnership proposals from organisations across Europe that wish to host and organise activities — download the Call for Partnership Proposals here.
The project has already produced the inaugural lecture, by Darren Wershler, Assistant Professor at Concordia University, and presented by FutureEverything in cooperation with transmediale. Many of McLuhan’s most powerful insights came from his deep engagement with the artistic and literary avant-gardes of the early 20th century. The inaugural McLuhan in Europe 2011 lecture illuminated McLuhan’s creative influences and described the fascinating connections between McLuhan’s predictions and declarations, and contemporary poetry, artwork, and thought. Watch it below: