Some more interesting quotes, this time from Essential McLuhan (Anansi, 
1995, edited by Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone)-

A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance 
retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individuals 
encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored 
data of a saleable kind.-1979 (from pg 295-296).

An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private 
conscious.-1964 (pg 296).

The next medium, whatever it is- it may be the extension of conciousness- 
will include television as it's content, not as it's environment, and 
will transform television into an art form.-1967 (pg 296)

It is a world where the creative imagination of the artist is now needed 
by the men who handle the computers-1958 (pg 295).


Some interesting asides- they web may not be the digital manifestation of 
conscience McLuhan is speaking of, but some of us are working on it.

The next medium will include television as content- witness the novelty 
of full motion video on the Net, and Mbone. Interactive Tv proponents, 
take note.

In a recent lecture at Wilfrid Laurier University ( my school ), Eric 
McLuhan spoke about Synaesthesia, and he spoke about Interactive 
Multimedia designers and the importance of the sensibilites of the artist 
in designing interactive media with a synaesthetic quality. It was a 
great lecture (delivered on March 15/96), and I came away with a feeling 
of utter despair. Being a computer scientist, I do not have the aesthetic 
sensibilities to design IM, I am a lowly toolsmith. A friend of mine, 
however, is an aspiring author, and he was elated that people like 
McLuhan (and his father) are advocating taking the chisels out of the 
hands of the toolsmiths and putting them in the hands of sculptors. The 
current mediocirty in IM is the result of too many toolsmiths trying to 
carve the Web/CD-Rom equivalent of Michelangelo's David.