A reflection on Mashall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore’s “The Medium is the Massage–An Inventory of Effects”
McLuhan and Fiore mix pounding prose and a deliberate, repetitive, rhythm of bold and ghostly imagery, which questions personal existence, the interconnections of social forms that exist outside ourselves, and the heavy effects social things have on our inner core.
McLuhan, a media analyst, and Fiore, a graphic designer, expand and define the impact of media on humankind. They combined their ideas and talents to produce this work.
I found the energetic circling and underlining of paragraph intriguing, as well as the name of the piece (“message” would make more sense, but “massage” provides more of a sensory effect).
One part of this piece began remind me of an episode of The Monkees, a show that was filmed in the years 1966-1968 about a group of young musicians who get into all sorts of situations. Although on the surface the Monkees were quite goofy, their material often dealt with serious and thought-provoking subjects about culture and meaning.
In this particular episode, titled “Monkee vs. Machine”, the Monkees had to confront a computer-like machine that was taking jobs away from people at a toy factory. The toy-makers had become obsolete and no match for the computer’s intelligence and efficiency. 
One by one the Monkees have to have a meeting with the computer, with the computer greeting them officially and powerfully. However, one of the Monkees charmingly defeats the computer through quick-witted, silly puns and mind-games that the computer could not comprehend. They soon succeed in giving back the jobs to the workers, despite the hard-headed boss’ adamant push towards replacing every job with technology.
I think this episode provides a rather triumphant ending of humans over technology and the influence of hype and media. It contains a similar theme that the phrase “Come into my parlor,” said the computer to the specialist” in “The Medium is the Massage”.
While writing this reflection, I researched more into the context of “The Medium is the Massage”, and it turns out that it was released in 1967 (in the same era as the Monkees, the Beatles, and others!!). It’s funny that I connected the two without knowing the time period that “The Medium is the Massage” was created in; its so interesting there’s a consistent theme of challenging images and objects present among these minds and culture.
In a review of the audio pieces and book I read online, by Brett Milano on AllMusic.com, Milano discusses the intellectual era of “trippiness” and “surreal humor” that came about during this time. He also talks about the origin of the title, which McLahun stated was an spelling error from the editor, which he decided to keep because it seemed to be very fitting.
This opens my mind more to the power that this combination of talent has; it’s pounding, intricate, challenging, and gives off a restless, unsatisfied energy. I would love to do more research on other pieces produced within this time period.
This piece created developed a united message, conceptually and aesthetically. The images evoked various emotions through their manipulation in space. They played with motion, rhythm, and depth through the variation of photograph and text placement. For Project 2 (the collage project) I would also like to create this energy and unity by placing my photographs and textures in deliberate and interesting directions and meaningful places.
Note: I just realized that the colored “underlining” and “circling” that I talked about in the reflection may have not been a part of the work, but digital notes from the copy that we were provided. They did add a certain emphasis and severity to the book, even if they may not have been a part of the original.
Images taken from (links given):
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