Gannaway_McLuhan's Media Hot & Cold_Response

This passage, from the 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man was interesting yet puzzling. I couldn't quite grasp completely what McLuhan meant by hot and cold mediums. My understanding was this:

hot medium = one that is projecting in "high def", in other words not requiring participation from the audience. Intense and influential, sometimes too extreme for society/people to handle.

cold medium = "low def", requiring participation for it's effectiveness, therefore less powerful as a stand-alone method of conveying ideas but nevertheless integral to society/people.

 It seems like the notion of hot/cold medium reflects the history industrialized society changing with the advent of radio, film, and TV. This reminded me of the Futurist Manifesto, describing the fast-paced changes that confronted the industrial world during the early 20th century. I wonder what McLuhan's view on the Internet would have been because the Internet among other technologies has been impactful in creating today's society of seemingly ever-expanding modes of information and connection.

Gannaway_Cultural Intercom Response

Stan VanDerBeek's Cultural Intercom is an exciting take on future roles of technology and human interaction/communication. Written in 1966, this work is surprisingly futuristic. I say this because VanDerBeek mentions how his Cultural Intercom or "movie-drome", or "life theatre", or "experience machine" or whatever other name he calls it is essentially a "world wide library source". This notion seems futuristic because someone today might consider VanDerBeek's Cultural Intercom to be the Internet, or the World Wide Web. This connection is impressive, considering the Internet as we know it today didn't exist in any part of the world during the 1960s.

I also like VanDerBeek's ideas on an "appreciation of individual minds" and "the interlocking of good wills on an international exchange basis." It seems like VanDerBeek had inspirational and exciting ideas about the future, although his notion of an "non-verbal" "international pictorial-language" seems a bit unrealistic. The drawings were also evocative and thought-provoking, overall emphasizing VanDerBeek's Cultural Intercom idea.

Culture Intercom: Jarik

It's interesting to see how cinema has become the bridge between man cultural gaps, and truly many gaps in general when comes to understanding one another as human beings. It is something truly special in how cinema allows us to view things from many different perspectives and allows us the ability to interpret things in our way based on how we see other people interact with different stimuli.

"Culture: Intercom" - Sam

I enjoyed reading this article by Stan Vanderbeek, where he talks about his dream of communicating with different parts of the world with new technology that uses motion pictures or motion murals as the new developed communication language that everyone in different parts of the world can understand. The non verbal pictorial language indeed should be developed, which will definitely boost up the communication around the world at present time of technological explosions.

Movie-drome is another interesting thing to think about that will definitely give people the massive scale of information to work on and bring out their own thoughts and conclusions. Overall, at the verge of technological development, a new way of communication is indeed a need. 

Culture Intercom

I'm not really sure what to make of what I read. All these readings seem to be just a bit out of my grasp. However, what I can say is that it was interesting that he felt the future was video and that everyone needed to be on board immediately. The idea of having a global pictorial language created by artists was also interesting, though I'm not entirely sure how it would work.

The movie-drome seemed to interest me the most, I think. I liked the idea of showing what sounds like somewhat random images and having an endless amount of perceptions about what was shown. Pretty cool.

Crouch_'Culture Intercom'

I actually really enjoyed this technological manifesto, it was over all a good read and I anticipated what was going to talked about next. Although,  I don't necessarily agree with all of it. You can tell right from the beginning that he seems to have a great interest in motion pictures as an art form. He wants to use it to as a global means of communication. Telling readers to film their experiences in the world and turn it into art. I liked how he spoke about the art form of motion pictures and how it could possibly change the world.

He wanted to achieve this advanced level of human understanding through the use of technologies, asking you to stray away from the normal use of language referring it to something destructive. I do believe that advances in technology are important, but spoken communication is one of the reasons we have even gotten to make such advances.

I was started picturing his description of the "Movie Murals" in the "Ethos-Cinema", but I began to wonder if his dislike towards the emotional-sociology approach of things was deep rooted and had a personal connection to him. All in all he was warning everyone to be prepared for the future, and in order to be prepared had to turn to international picture language. Overall very interesting!

Hernandez_Venderbeek Response

I have to agree with Vanderbeek's first notion that this relatively new technology of motion pictures is the new, revolutionizing art of our modern society - "the art form of our time." Is it the most important means for world communication? Perhaps, perhaps not. However, the common man may certainly be able to more closely relate to video or film, the motion inherently develops an emotional response within a viewer as the human brain creates connection between life experiences and the presentation. In contrast, the static nature of a print or painting requires a deeper level of investment that any individual may be reluctant to develop while viewing a piece. This is how it is understandable that Vanderbeek calls to action that it is imperative that "the entire level of world human understanding rise to a new human scale." Such wishful thinking, but perhaps one day we will indeed reach that level of understanding among us all. It seems Vanderbeek insists on a sort of cultural exchange, that too seems like it may aid in the pursuit towards world human communication.