信息环境与艺术——送交秘书处的发言摘要

Information Environment and Arts: Extracts from Statements Handed to the Secretariat in Writing

麦克卢汉在这篇为联合国发言所作的摘要中阐述了三个话题,即大脑结构与艺术、艺术作为人类环境的基本组成部分,以及艺术与第三世界的关系。在第一个话题中,麦克卢汉试图阐明,由于技术特别是信息技术的发展变革导致了人造环境的总体变化,进而使得人类大脑半球的主导地位在20世纪发生了变化;在第二个话题中,麦克卢汉提出一个饶有趣味的现象,即20世纪人类环境的全新特征来自电子信息的普及,而在此背景下的新的艺术形式却总是将自身隐藏在背景中——总是以新的形式呈现旧的内容;在最后一个话题中,麦克卢汉则以第三世界艺术、广告、文学以及爵士乐等为例,强调所有艺术作品都是创作者与公众共同的产物。

In this extract of the speech for the United Nations, McLuhan elaborates on three topics: the brain structure and art, art as an essential part of human environment, and the relationship between art and the third world. In the first topic, McLuhan tried to clarify that the development of technology, especially media technology, led to an overall change in human environment, which in turn led to changes in the dominance of the human hemisphere in the 20th century. In the second topic, McLuhan proposed an interesting phenomenon that the new feature of the human environment in the 20th century came from the popularity of electronic information, and the new art form in this context always hid itself in the background, that is, always presented old content in new forms. In the last topic, McLuhan took art of the third world, advertising, literature as well as jazz as examples, emphasizing that all works of art are products of creators and their public.