Counterblast 2025

"Each technology, explains McLuhan in this book, is as imperceptible to the people who live with it it as a water is to fish," begins the dust jacket copy.

‘Counterblast’ was a 1969 book written by Marshall McLuhan, designed by colleague Harley Park (painter, noted innovator in museum exhibits design). It was a revisit of a previous work of the same title which appeared on the streets of Toronto, stapled between blue covers, in 1954, and which was itself a response to an earlier work of English/Canadian writer and painter Wyndham Lewis, ‘Blast,’ from 1911.

The inside dust jacket announces:

“In 1911, Wyndham Lewis’s BLAST heralded a revolution in the arts and the minds of men. Using unconventional typography, graphic design, and serious irreverence, BLAST proclaimed that centuries of tradition had been wrenched askew by rapid changes in society and y the dynamism of the machine. Now Marshall McLuhan sets off a COUNTERBLAST to tell us that we are again in revolutionary times.

“COUNTERBLAST is a manifesto and a book of revelations. Behind it is DR McLuhan’s thesis that innovations in technology, and especially in the communications media, radically alter not only our life styles, but our very reality, our perception of the world.”

The book is slightly reminiscent of the best-selling collaboration between McLuhan and designer Quentin Fiore, but with typographic rather than photographic flourishes.

It serves as a nice introduction to McLuhan thought for someone less familiar, and as an interesting restatement of familiar themes for someone more familiar. And sometimes startling fresh explorations which feel like they could have been published today.

I spent some time rereading it this spring after winding up Part Two of the Understanding Media Intensive course for the summer break, and was delighted at the richness of material and expression. Almost every page is good for a stop and think.

At some point I turned to the back cover and read the copy there and one part stopped me:

“Our new experience belies our old institutions, and unless we become aware of the radical change in our environment and in ourselves, we are in for a tragic clash between the old and the new.”

This, while we are in the throes of AI, hits hard. And what are we to do?

“COUNTERBLAST is conceived as a ‘counter-environment’ to help us see the truth about our wider environment.”

Of course. We can set up a counter-environment.

Yank the fish out of the water.

But how?

I try to do a ‘summer session’ for my students every year as a way to keep them engaged as well as to allow them the opportunity to mingle between cohorts. The wonderful thing about this course I lead is that it attracts like-minded people from all over the world. I had been thinking about what to do this year. Now I knew. We will set up a counter-environment to study what’s happening with AI. And who better to explore the McLuhan idea of counter-environment and apply it to today, than the people who have been studying McLuhan and applying ‘Understanding Media’ to our contemporary world with me since 2020!

Here’s how I put it:

I added a twist. The summer session is meant for students of The McLuhan Institute, but I wanted to let others in on what we do. So this year we will stream the event on August 9th on The McLuhan Institute’s YouTube page for all to see. I hope you’ll join us.

Five students have already sent in proposals and it’s looking good.

And if you want to get in on the Understanding Media Intensive action, we can fit a few more in the class (I like to keep it smallish) starting first week of September when we resume with chapter 21.

Thanks for being here,

Andrew

ps: sincere apologies to subscribers for lack of posting lately. winter/spring were kind of intense. Going to make an effort to remedy that and catch up with my posting asap. I appreciate those who have stuck around and maybe understood that I’ll get back to it when I can. Next up: complete the series on part one of UM that I got half-way through! After that, not sure, but the possibilities are endless. If you’re a subscriber and would like to see a post on a particular subject, let me know.