McLuhan and Transparency: Perspectives on Technological Mediation with Yoni Van Den Eede

What is it about all technologies that eludes us?

That is the question behind this media-philosophical workshop, which builds on the work of Marshall McLuhan, contextualizing it in the larger tradition of the philosophy of technology and of media. In this workshop we’ll endeavor to get to the core of how it is exactly that technologies mediate our life and our world. And how technologically mediated they are! Every aspect of our daily life is in some way or another way accompanied by media or technologies. But what is this technological mediation? Several recent approaches – philosophical, sociological, psychological – have been developed to come to grips with the phenomenon. But despite their great merits, each of these approaches illuminates only certain aspects of the question. A deeper and broader analysis of the concept of technological mediation is possible. In this workshop we'll try to get to the heart of the matter in two steps, first theoretical, then practical. Come join the discussion!

Organized in association with McLuhan Legacy Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of Marshall McLuhan in Toronto and around the globe. MLN is organizing the McLuhan Centenary Festival Week, July 18-24, 2011. More information at http://mcluhan.net

Presented with the financial support of the Quebecor Fund
McLuhan tote bag Image (CC) by Reckon (http://www.flickr.com/photos/reckon/2816021093/)

About the presenter

Yoni Van Den Eede is a graduate student working on his doctoral dissertation at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium, in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences. He applies continental philosophy to questions of the social impacts of media and technology. He is the author of “Conversation of Mankind” or “Idle Talk”?: A Pragmatist Approach to Social Networking Sites, and In Between Us: On the Transparency and Opacity of Technological Mediation published in PhilPapers. Yoni is organizing a conference in Brussels in October 2011 entitled McLuhan's Philosophy of Media -- Centennial Conference.