Scalar's 'additional metadata' features have been disabled on this install. Learn more.
Explorations ProjectMain MenuOverviewMeet the IndividualsTimelineExperimentsArchiveArtworkAbout the Project-
Explorations 8
12018-09-17T19:23:58-07:00Emma Allainaf81bfdcf8d535972cadaf567952dcafd4b4d57c244601plain2018-09-17T19:23:58-07:00Emma Allainaf81bfdcf8d535972cadaf567952dcafd4b4d57cExplorations in Anonymous HistoryToronto School Media Studies, 1951-1959EXPLORATIONS 8 (1957) is perhaps the most famous of all the issues. It was devoted to the oral—“Verbi-Voco-Visual”—and was edited primarily by McLuhan and again published by the Toronto Telegram and the University of Toronto. The issue was filled with visual experimentation; framed by extensive play with typography in the spirit of the Vorticists and for the first time the extensive use of “flexitype” by Harley Parker, then display designer at the ROM. Seen throughout are Parker’s experiments with typography as well as color printing, the first time in the history of the journal. A photomontage from László Moholy-Nagy’s Vision in Motion (1947) depicting a man’s face with an ear juxtaposed over an eye is the frontispiece to the issue. The issue features seven essays, including one by McLuhan, that explore xii different aspects of oral culture—mostly concerned with a transition to a new orality. Twenty-four non-authored “Items,” which include some previously published essays by McLuhan and Carpenter, appear as humorous intellectual sketches exploring topics like “Electronics as ESP,” car commercials, bathroom acoustics, dictaphones, and of course wine. The final “Item,” number 24, entitled “No Upside Down in Eskimo Art,” reiterated McLuhan and Carpenter’s core assertion that “after thousands of years of written processing of human experience, the instantaneous omnipresence of electronically processed information has hoicked us out of these age-old patterns into an auditory world.”
