Kalina Kukiełko: The Art. in Marshall McLuhan's media theory

Marshall McLuhan is probably the best known media theorists and critics of last century. For decades, his eccentric prose has inspired generations of intellectualists. Though controversial, his candid and often shocking philosophies of the "electronic media" provoked a contemporary discourse on the mass media, society and culture. However, the most interesting interpretation of McLuhan's original statements occurs when we concentrate on his art theory. The main aim of this article is to present McLuhan's concept of art in view of his conceptual framework. The author's analysis has been focusing on McLuhan's media theory, concerning various aspects of creating and modifying the mass media as well as their impact. This concept is the starting point for his whole scientific and artistic activity and constitutes the basis of all hypotheses formulated by him. According to McLuhan, the origination and impact of ever more advanced and complicated communication techniques entails transformations not only in the reality we live in, but also in our way of perceiving and understanding it. Author attempts to present this concept giving special emphasis to those issues which concern the mutual influence of the media and the arts. However, McLuhan didn't formulated a comprehensive theory relating to the art itself or social roles carried out by the artist. Therefore, author tries to reconstruct one by combining appropriate extracts on the issue which appeared in his various writings. According to McLuhan, the essential role of the art in the society is to show people new modes of perception (adequate to the new technologies) and to lead them into the forthcoming future painlessly.