Speeding Speech: Pigeon Mail to the 21st Century

We often find ourselves resenting the fast-paced-ness of technology in the 21st century, cringing about how instantly we can be reached by others, at almost any time of the day. On the other side of this global spectrum, however, technology has and continues to bring smiles to faces far apart, connecting lives beyond geological boundaries. Today, new media is allowing us, if not more intensely, but equally, to feel basic human emotions such as joy, sadness, jealousy... just as our ancestors did growing up in a technologically free world. 

Living alone in a foreign land, being miles and miles away from my home country, has made me deeply value technology, almost treasure it every single day- it's the only connection I have with home, my family and friends. This is the reason why I decided to do an experimental short film showing just how far we have come in electric circuitry! 

For my project, I put together clips of commercials and short films from the 1900s to the present day demonstrating the level of communication technology that existed in each decade and how people in their respective times, were able to utilize it. As the film advances chronologically, we notice how McLuhan's notions of electric circuitry and its expanse aptly summarize what has been happening over the past 100-150 years. He writes, "Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of "time" and "space" and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men. It has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale." (McLuhan in "Your Neighborhood", The Medium Is The Massage)

 

Gone are the days when you would trust a pigeon to deliver your message, have to go through an operator just to call someone, or spend both your time and a fortune in order to have a conversation. Today, our loved ones, and even strangers all around the world, are now just an on-screen tap away. We no longer need to wait. 

Wordsworth and McLuhan: Visionaries from Different Eras

I grew up on the poems of William Wordsworth. If you read them, especially this, my favorite one, you will probably wish you'd read them as a child too.
Marshall McLuhan in his book, The Medium is the Massage, quotes this verse from Wordsworth's poem, Expostulation and Reply (McLuhan 44):

"The eye, it cannot choose but see;

    We cannot bid the ear be still;

  Our bodies feel, where'er they be,

      Against or with our will."    

  - Expostulation and Reply, 1798



These lines were spoken by Wordsworth when his friend Matthew asked him why he was sitting, looking out to the lake, daydreaming his time away, when he should instead be spending his time reading books and enlightening himself. Wordsworth, a strong believer in the power of nature to provide man with a kind of knowledge that books would never be able to impart, said he was in fact enlightening himself just by allowing nature and his present surroundings to take control and stimulate his senses. 

Wordsworth's response aptly summed his philosophy about the relationship between man and his immediate surroundings and it is this philosophy that McLuhan further explores throughout themes of his book. 

Both McLuhan and Wordsworth are not just revolutionary thinkers from different eras, but true visionaries. Their words still hold true and are very relatable today, to a generation way ahead of each of their times. 


(L) Portrait of Wordsworth by S.Crosthwaite, 1884 
(R) Photo of McLuhan by L.McCombe, 1967