transmediale and the Marshall McLuhan Salon of the Embassy of Canada present a new edition of the discussion series McLuminations, titled Global Village Anxiety. The series is curated and moderated by Baruch Gottlieb, featuring the media researchers Andrew Clement and Steffi Winkler. The participants will engage in a conversation on anxieties about future technologies and how mediated forms of communication can either heighten or alleviate such anxieties. The conversants interact with McLuhan’s ideas through archival video clips, warming up the "cool media" of video through an irreverent live exchange.

The Marshall McLuhan Salon has the largest audiovisual archive about the media philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan outside of Canada, and will be open during the festival.

The series title McLuminations refers to the tradition of illuminated manuscripts, in which texts were adorned with painstaking ornamentation that contributed to the interpretation as well as to the aesthetic pleasure of reading. The tradition of illumination ceased with the invention of the Gutenberg Press. Now, as we emerge into a digital age of the “global village,” McLuminations proposes a retrieval of the video-text of electronic media culture's famous herald Marshall McLuhan from the increasingly obsolescent media in which his thought is so concisely inscribed. Reworking McLuhan’s recorded thought in an interactive live conversation, participants compel McLuhan to reflect upon our current age—illuminating our contemporary struggles to understand the transformations we are involved in.

Embassy of Canada
Leipziger Platz 17, 10117 Berlin

Doors open: 13:30

Please present a valid photo-ID at the door and allow sufficient time for Embassy security.

The event is in English; entry is free after registration.

transmediale Marshall McLuhan Projects are a cooperation between transmediale and the Embassy of Canada in Berlin.