Wave is a legacy project of the McLuhan Centenary 2011, at the University of Alberta. It invites participants to experience and reflect upon the themes put forth by Marshall McLuhan, by responding to images, text, and sound that are presented in three social contexts.

Participants in and around the public and “concrete” space of Enterprise Square at the University of Alberta can view two large screens. As they approach the installation, people may use handheld devices (iPod Touch, BlackBerry, or iPad, for example) to find out more about Wave using a webapp, which is a website that is designed to work conveniently with these devices. Using the webapp, participants can explore live webcams from around the world. As they approach the installation, they will hear a specially created musical composition, which features the electronically processed voice of Marshall McLuhan.

People anywhere in the world entering Wave’s virtual space will use the same webapp to participate in and view the installation. Virtual Participants create small bursts of word clouds related to the location they are connecting from.

The third social context is made up of the two communities of practice. One is a poetry circle creating verse using the practice called renga. The other group creates and selects photos. Both the renga and the photos are selected and presented in ways that respond to probes and aphorisms associated with the themes of Wave.

The primary artifacts of the installation are two large screens, approximately 3 metres high and 5 metres wide. The web app invites participants to learn more about Marshall McLuhan and the theme of the art installation, and to respond by contributing to the installation through a community of practice. Participants may view and respond to the installation in the concrete space without using the web app. Participants may tweet short messages and comment on the installation using the hashtag #waveart.

The images, text, and sound emerge reflect the theme of the installation, which is the tribal and immersive character of new media. Many people have observed a shift in thought, action, and perception resulting from the evolving environment of sound and image that occludes and supplants the environment of text. Marshall McLuhan describes a continuous transformation of the social world through media, beginning with the printing press but seen, too, in recent inventions and innovations. Participants in the concrete, virtual, and community spaces are aware of and influenced by each of the other spaces. For example, participants in the online space view what is happening in the concrete space and learn about the work and contribution of people in the community space.

Explore Marshall McLuhan on Wikipedia.

How to Wave

You can experience Wave in more than one way.

Scan the on-screen QR code to begin.

• Interact with Wave at Enterprise Square
  (10230 Jasper Ave, Edmonton AB).
• Watch what others are doing.
• View your image as a silhouette.
• Select a webcam from around the world - using a mobile device such as an iPhone or iPad
• Move your hand or body in front of the digital alphabet characters. Coming soon!
• Listen to the music track.
• Read a renga.
• Tweet #waveart or follow @wave_art
• Visit WaveArt.ca

Having trouble? Be sure to access the URL on the screen, or try scanning the QR code using an app such as ScanLife.

Wave was conceived by a University of Alberta team from six departments:

• Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering
• Department of Industrial Design
• Department of English and Film Studies
• Department of Drama
• Communications and Technology Graduate Program
• Department of Music

Leads

• Cezary Gajewski - Design
• Loren Wyard-Scott - Engineering
• Marco Adria - Chair
• Joel Adria - System Architect
• Alice Major - Poetry Liaison
• Wayne DeFehr - English
• Mark Hannesson - Music
• Mel Geary - Drama
• Erin Valentine - Webcam Curator

Engineering Capstone Participation

• Geoffrey Merrick
• Taylor Machacek
• Roxanne Borowickie
• Ross Hammermeister
• Kevin Oberle
• Stephie Cadek
• Darya Ostapenko
• Kyle Brown
• James Helberg
• Regan Flavelle
• Roxanne Borowiecki

Special Thanks

• NAIT Electronics Department

Funders and Sponsors

Wave was supported through funding and in-kind contributions from the following departments at the University of Alberta:

• Faculty of Extension
• Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering
• Department of Industrial Design
• Department of English and Film Studies
• Communications and Technology Graduate Program
• Department of Music
• Department of Drama
• President's Grants for the Creative and Performing Arts from the Killam Research Fund

Links

Find out more about the Herbert Marshall McLuhan Edmonton Centenary 2011:

McLuhan Centenary Homepage

See a prototype of Wave (called the McLuhan TV Wall) as exhibited at the Art Gallery of Alberta, November 2010:

Vintage TV Wall

See a prototype of Wave as exhibited at the Edmonton International Airport, May 2011 to the present:

Vintage TV Wall in Folio Magazine

Listen to audio clips about McLuhan, the Centenary, and Edmonton, broadcast on CKUA Radio:

CKUA Audio Vignettes

Contact

If you have any questions or inquiries about Wave or the McLuhan Centenary, please email contact@waveart.ca, or mention @wave_art on Twitter.

Wave Facts

Wave is always evolving as new ideas are contributed, and new technologies are explored. Below are some interesting facts about McLuhan and the Wave Project.

What's a QR code?

A QR code is like a barcode, except it can store data such as a poem or a URL. To start scanning QR codes, download a scanner app, such as ScanLife for your mobile device.

McLuhan's Rhetoric

McLuhan used words in novel ways, as a rhetorical device to stimulate new ideas about media and their effects. Sensorium is a metaphor for the human capacity to combine and synthesize the senses of touch, sound, sight, and smell. McLuhan argued that over long periods of time, a change in the patterns of using one sense caused a change in another sense.

What's that sound?

The Wave music track plays continuously from beginning to end during the installation at Enterprise Square. The length of the composition takes many weeks to complete, and the sounds heard will never be the same over the course of the exhibition. The music was composed University of Alberta composer and assistant professor Dr. Mark Hannesson.

On Wave's Poetry

Alice Major: "Rhyme helps create McLuhan's spherical, non-directional auditory dimension. It is one of the key mnemonic devices that enables stretches of language to be remembered, in the way that poems had to be remembered in preliterate societies. It's both old, low-tech and yet somehow post-avant-garde."

Voice of McLuhan

The Wave music track was created using a single audio source: 20 minutes of archival recording of Marshall McLuhan's voice. The recording is of McLuhan speaking on television with talk-show host Dick Cavett in the 1970s. In the interview, McLuhan talks about media and the phenomenon of what he calls the "acoustic space" of the modern world.

McLuhan's Laws

McLuhan used words in novel ways, as a rhetorical device to stimulate new ideas about media and their effects. Tetrad is a word referring to the "four laws" that McLuhan and his son Eric proposed as a method of learning about change, including technological change. The four laws are summarized in these questions: What does the technology enhance? What does it make obsolete? What does it retrieve from the past? What form does it take after it reverses through intensive use?

The Medium is the Message

McLuhan used words in new ways, as a rhetorical device to stimulate new ideas about media and their effects. Medium became a popular word in North American usage after McLuhan began to define it in a new way. A medium for McLuhan allows us to extend ourselves in the world. A light bulb is a medium, for example, because it extends our sight, allowing us to read at night.

On Technology

McLuhan is sometimes described by critics as advocating for technology and encouraging its use. But in the National Film Board of Canada feature, McLuhan's Wake, McLuhan says, "I am resolutely opposed to all kinds of innovation, all change. I am determined to understand what's happening."

On Numbness

Marshall McLuhan argued that we experience numbness when we begin to use a new medium, and that we eventually forget about the numbness. Numbness for McLuhan was a form of narcosis, similar to a state of being drugged. We see ourselves in media, and this creates a sense of the unreal. We are like the mythical character Narcissus, who sees himself in the mirror but believes it is someone else. The narrator in the National Film Board of Canada feature, McLuhan's Wake, says, "The things you make, they mimic you."

On Identity Theft

Marshall McLuhan foresaw identity theft, because he argued that things that can be owned can be taken away without consent. In the National Film Board of Canada feature, McLuhan's Wake, McLuhan says, "every private operator can own a hunk of your central nervous system, as if it were a wheel, a box, or a piece of land."

On the Poetry

The rhymes displayed in Wave were written using a form of the collaborative Japanese poetic technique of renga. Renga has been used by Canadian poets P.K. Page and Philip Stratford. The renga in the exhibit were written by a group of Edmonton poets convened by Alice Major.

Wave's Authors

Wave was conceived by a University of Alberta team of faculty members and students from the departments of Electrical and Computing Engineering, Industrial Design, English and Film Studies, Communications and Technology, Drama, and Music. Alice Major, Edmonton poet- laureate, designed and coordinated a group of poets who wrote the Renga rhymes for the installation. This project is funded, in part, by the President's Grants for the Creative and Performing Arts from the Killam Research Fund.

McLuhan's Ancestry

Marshall McLuhan's father's business, McLuhan Realty, existed on the present site of Edmonton City Centre Mall. The home in which the McLuhan family lived when Marshall was born still stands in Highlands. A few years after Marshall's birth, the family moved to Winnipeg, where Marshall attended the University of Manitoba.

Wave's Poetry

The rhymes displayed in Wave were written using a form of the collaborative Japanese poetic technique of renga. Renga is accretive, meaning that successive stanzas can be added by others. In Wave, the length of each renga line is 50 characters, and each stanza includes two rhyming lines. The renga were written by a group of Edmonton writers convened by Alice Major.

Where is Wave?

After display for six months in Enterprise Square, Wave will move to the Edmonton International Airport for exhibit until February 2012. Then the components will disassembled for reuse in university departments.

McLuhan in Edmonton

Marshall McLuhan maintained contact with his extended family in Edmonton, by phone and occasional visit, throughout his life. He was a lifelong friend and collaborator with two University of Alberta professors, Professor Sheila Watson, who studied for her Ph.D. with McLuhan at the University of Toronto, and Professor Wilfred Watson. McLuhan and Wilfred Watson co-authored a book published in 1970 entitled, From Cliché to Archetype.

On Grammar

McLuhan used words in novel ways, as a rhetorical device to stimulate new ideas about media and their effects. Grammar was for McLuhan the science of languages, including the language of technology. For McLuhan, all technologies are languages. He encouraged people to learn these new languages as a first step in understanding technology's hidden effects.

Experiencing Wave

You can experience Wave in more than one way. Watch what others are doing. View your image as a silhouette. Select a webcam from around the world – using a mobile device such as an iPad or iPhone. Move your hand or body in front of the digital alphabet characters (coming soon). Tweet using #waveart. Listen to the music track. Read the renga.

Wave Worldwide

Wave can be viewed in Enterprise Square, but it can also be interacted with on the web. The QR code that is displayed on the Wave in Edmonton, is also displayed on the Media-Wall in Münster, Germany. The image sequence displayed there was developed in close collaboration with Prof. Norbert Nowotsch from the University of Applied Sciences Münster and Prof. Cezary Gajewski from the University of Alberta.

Wave shows more than 500 webcam views from around the world.

Thoughts on Wave

Wave invites participants to experience and reflect upon the themes of the McLuhan Centenary by responding to images, text, and sound that are presented in three social contexts: Enterprise Square, Wave's virtual space, and the communities of practice involved in writing renga and curating photos and images.

Wave Components

The primary artifacts of Wave are two large screens, approximately 3 metres high and 5 metres wide, which project webcam images from around the world. The images change regularly, and can be activated through the web app. The web app invites participants to learn more about the McLuhan Centenary and the theme of the art installation, and to respond by contributing to the installation through a community of practice.

Tribal Wave

Marshall McLuhan describes a continuous transformation of the social world through media, beginning with the printing press but seen, too, in recent inventions and innovations such as the iPad and Tweet Deck. The images, text, and sound of Wave reflect the theme of the tribal and immersive character of new media.

Wave Technology

Two 60" displays are powered by two graphics cards on an 8-core Mac Pro. A Mac Mini powers this information screen, while eight speakers play unique channels of sound. Wave downloads about 1000 images a day, or about 1 gigabyte of data to keep its information current, and notifies its authors when it is having trouble. Wave changes colour throughout the day.