transmediale, in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada Berlin and the Marshall McLuhan Salon are presenting a key weekend event celebrating the legacy of Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. Part of the McLuhan in Europe 2011 network of events initiated by transmediale, Berlin’s Centennnial Weekend will take place May 27 - 29 at the Embassy of Canada and Marshall McLuhan Salon.
The Marshall McLuhan Salon at the Canadian Embassy Berlin houses an extensive archive of video documentation and original broadcasts featuring legendary Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan. Unique introductions to McLuhan's work and ideas these documents generate McLuminations, a special series of three ‘illuminated screening’ events during the McLuhan Centennial year, directed by Baruch Gottlieb of the Vilém Flusser Archive (UdK Berlin).
This international academic conference is curated by Prof. Dieter Daniels of the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig and will consist of keynotes and leading thinkers in the field exploring Marshall McLuhan’s unique take on senory effects of electronic media as “extensions of man” and his legacy on artistic and digital cultural practice.
Dr. Katja Kwastek is an art historian and served vice-director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. in Linz (Austria), where she directed the research projects on interactive art until 2009. Her research focuses on digital media art, e.g. on changing spatial conceptions due to the rise of (wireless) communication technologies and on the aesthetics of new media art.
Dr. Claus Pias is Professor for Media-History and Media Theory at the Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM) at the University of Lüneburg. At transmediale.11 he previewed his latest book Was waren Medien? which will be published in conjunction with the McLuhan centennial.
Prof. Richard Cavell is the author of McLuhan in Space: A Cultural Geography (2002; 2003; UTP “Classic” 2005; digital publication 2007), the first book to articulate the spatial turn in media studies and McLuhan’s foundational role within it.
Dr. Graham Larkin is Curator of European & American Art at the National Gallery of Canada, where he recently reinstalled the collection of non-Canadian, pre-contemporary paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. In the field of information design he is a devotee of Edward Tufte, whom he assisted with various projects including the book Beautiful Evidence (2006).
Professor Janine Marchessault, author of Marshall McLuhan: Cosmic Media (Sage Publications, 2005) and co-editor of Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema (University of Toronto Press, 2007) is Research Chair in Art, Digital Media, and Globalization, York University, Canada.
Dr. Lorenz Engell is a professor of media philosophy at the Bauhaus University Weimar and a leading figure in the first 'generation' of academic researchers who recognized media studies as an independent field within the humanities.
