Response to "The Medium is the Message"

I found this article, "The Medium is the Message," very interesting as it opens up its topic through the digital age and use of technology and light to promote messages. The basic concept of the use of the digital age overwhelming us and becoming one of the new mediums also ties into what I'm learning in Anthropology about how cell phones have changed how we communicate and who we keep in contact with. When reading the opening of McLuhan's essay, the images of Vegas and neon lights came to mind with the constant advertisement via neon signs and lights. I never thought about the medium really being the message and instead focused on the idea of the medium not even having a message. Reading this essay really opened my eyes to seeing how these ads and everything has a message even if it isn't necessarily the content, but the medium it is presented in. I especially liked the line where McLuhan pointed out how we are used to asking what a painting is about but never what a dress is about. This line really made me think and realize how the content isn't always the message because as he points out a speech and an essay, for example, can both have the same content, but because they are different mediums, they have different messages. The way something is presented is important and gives a different meaning to the same content. One of the ways I think of it is reading a book and then seeing the book presented as a play, where there is some slight interpretation involved that can give off a different feel. Even with the slam poetry, the same poems could be read on paper but the impact would be different from hearing the writer speak it. The content would be the same, but there would be a different message. When searching through vimeo, I came across this video which takes text from the writings of Amédée Ozenfant and puts it in a different medium, video, with a repetitive soundtrack and visual that creates a different feel to the words than reading the text on a plain sheet of paper.

AXIOM from Sally Grizzell Larson on Vimeo.