Understanding Media, The Extension of Man Chapter 7
CHALLENGE AND COLLAPSE: THE NEMESIS OF CREATIVITY
PAGE 94: "There is a way whereby you can irrigate a hundred ditches in one day, and whereby you can do much with little effort," computer, email, text messaging. "Whoever uses a machine does all his work like a machine. He who does work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses simplicity," manifests in significance of balanced education; school should include students reading books, making use of computers, and attributed creativity to art. If educations medium exclusively switches to computer applications, superficiality will replace significance. A one-way education is an unfortunate education. Simplicity means easy to understand, but utilizing one aspect of education (removing arts and physical education from school) turns children into unhappy robots. "Art is precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology: art reveals information of how to rearrange one's own psyche to anticipate technologies next blow," people should not be caught goggling at art without a clear understanding that the artwork is reflective of the artists environment, truthful intuition, escorting our minds beyond surviving high glow. Imaginative strategy prescribes a corresponding structural approach to the existing visual world, if we keep approaching education with conventional models, black and white book, teacher preaching to students, hierarchy in school, academics will be annihilated. My project with Rich is seeking to hopefully embody--equally--progressing technology, craft in creativity, intellectual achievement, and long-established academics. "If we persist in a conventional approach to these developments our traditional culture will be swept aside as scholasticism was in the sixteenth century."
Just as higher education is no longer a frill or luxury but a stark need of production and operational design in the electric age, so the artist is indispensable in the shaping and analysis and understanding of the life forms, and structures created by electric technology.
PAGE 102: "Only the dedicated artist seem to have the power for encountering the present actuality. This is to locate cultural safety in the power of will, rather than in the power of adequate perception of situations. Willpower is as useful as intelligence, and also to be exceedingly informed and aware," will expresses probability of something in the present, habitual activity, desire or willingness, inevitable occurence of events, ability, or future tense: will is about expression; perception involves the ability to use the senses in awareness, understanding, and interpretation; willpower is the determination to succeed. If cultural safety is lodged in the power of will, then to protect ideas and intellectual achievements, one must do what appears best and is almost bound to do so. Voltaire describes will as wish and to be free as to be able: liberty is the power--based on constitution and health of organs--to do what one will: wishes to do, one's dominant thought; people can not resist dominant idea, by your will you obey the idea that dominates you more, but will is not free and willing without a cause is unworthy of creativity. There is a reason for everything; liberty is the power--based on constitution and health of organs--to do what one will. If one never has the opportunity to learn of alternatives, will is restricted; one can only have the will to act in what one knows exists. Cultural safety is thus reduced to the confines of an interacting community and other cultures are perceived through distinct mediums. Artistic interpretation is either a personal reality or the perception of a another's reality.
One has the ability to produce a painting of Milan while living in New York City; the painting is not an eye-witness account and behavior is examined through internet photographs of the city center. On the other hand, a painter produces a painting of Milan and has lived in Milan since birth, the painting is also of the city center. The general public now has the ability to perceive both paintings, but which artist presents reality and displays a greater extent of will to protect culture? Cultural safety also rests highly upon the source of will.
The internet presents society with the ability to discover beyond one's immediate environment, but personal involvement is capable of altering one's will and perception; involvement brings forth emotional connection (relationship), and emotions, derived from connections, affect one's will (purposefulness).
PAGE 103: "Had the schoolmen with their complex oral culture understood the Gutenberg technology, they would have created a new synthesis of written and oral education, instead of bowing out the picture and allowing the merely visual page take over the education enterprise," an enterprise is a project requiring effort and resourcefulness. McLuhan indicates the shift from oral to written culture encouraging change: production on assembly line (PAGE 93, the technique of starting with the thing to be discovered and working back), and the forming of diverse perspectives in painting.
Humans have been on earth roughly 40,000 years, and writing dates back to 6,000 years ago when writing materials were clay, parchment (animal skin), and papyrus (bark of tree), pens (quills) were from wings of birds. Written word is now fact, regulates value, and is supported by oral language, in our culture. Writing trades sound for sight, an ear for an eye, alters our communication and ultimately changes community, especially if one can not read the written word. Writing turns spoken language into a thing, a word, and categorizes (newspaper sections, dictionary, encyclopedia). Before writing, we relied on dialogue for understanding; now humans have the ability to learn through listening, reading, and writing: the one mastering rules of the three is said to hold the power of language. Oral language teaches student to learn by doing and listening. Written language teaches student to learn by reading, studying, memorizing, and opens opportunity to go back to written language and put forth greater consideration. A majority of schooling for economically disadvantaged children is now done through written language, while schooling for economically advantaged children incorporates oral and written language; affluent children have greater opportunity for comprehension of class lessons because hands-on technique is applied to written conversation and reading. Incorporating oral and written language into school is beneficial for student because intelligent assessment is encouraged. This project aspires to improve communication between students and staff in public schools by making creative necessities available for incorporation of oral, the doing, with the written, reading and reciting.
It takes longer to say a word than it does to read a word. Imagine what the written word has done to our speed of life.
The challenge and collapse of creativity is only seen in economically disadvantaged schools; the downfall is schools do not have materials needed for expressive activity or the supplies needed to engage students in a lesson; children learn by doing.
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