…What became important to McLuhan was to cut through the pervasive web of extensions that we have weaved in and around us in technological form. As I am now typing this, I’m trying to perceive this condition consciously but still find it very difficult not to get caught by the constitutively fragmentary, but hypnotic, linear procedure that must follow in order for me to reproduce my thought via the keyboard on to the screen and then on to a file, which then is saved in a database that I can detach from the far-reaching environment of my computer and carry this whole entirety anywhere I want, print it, post it, share it etc. Naturally, this is a conscious observation of an experience that can only be produced by my conscious evocation of theoretical hypotheses (McLuhan’s at this instance); meaning that we do not live our lives analyzing the actions we are performing. This goes to show the point McLuhan makes (59) that media are not “make aware technologies” but “make happen technologies”. It is also the gist of the point made by Heidegger (1978) on the phenomenology of technology as instruments; namely, our attention when using a hammer, for example, is not focused on the hammer itself but rather its effect. This is the formal nature of all mechanical instruments: their power resides in their natural and reciprocal applicability as extensions of the human bio-physiological form.
However, in the case electricity, the instrumentality fades away as mere extensive quality and we in effect are subsumed by the medium itself; i.e. electricity surpasses spatial-temporal obstructions to a degree that turns media into environments within which the subject-object dichotomy is blurred to a point of indecipherability. The way I am extended by my computer as an informational environment is that I must yield to its structure in order to be able to act through it. It is, to be sure, a discontinuous process, unlike an instrumental one: I can distance myself from immediate objects and process my thought (which is otherwise a holistic condition) into a logical argument that can be reproduced or retracted at any moment. The eradication of concrete and immediate results and the separation of action from reaction are also an emergent characteristic that is lacking from a mere instrumental understanding/usage of medium.
What McLuhan seems to be saying by his reference to environments (e.g. 69, 148, 112) is that media’s nature as environments is always a higher level aspect in comparison to their instrumental value or function. The way I am referring to medium-as-environment’s pervasive nature is analogous to McLuhan’s explication of the autoamputative nature of media. Medium-as-environment exerts a great amount of pressure (in the form of information) on the subject and to be able to function under that pressure, some parts of the system must yield (self-amputate). McLuhan further explains:
“Self-amputation forbids self-recognition. The principle of self-amputation as an immediate relief of strain on the central nervous system applies very readily to the origin of the media of communication from speech to computer. ” (1964, 47)
A medium in the process of development (e.g. the PC) manifests what could be called a “bleed-through” whereby subjects “empowering” themselves through it must immerse in it to a point of becoming part of it. “[T]he stimulus to new invention is the stress of acceleration of pace and increase of load.” (ibid. 46) Similar psycho-physiological consequences are apparent in N. Katherine Hayles’ discussion (1999) on proprioceptive coherence – which, however, does not separate the medium form as having relevance to the nature of the condition, as can be seen below:
“Proprioceptive coherence, a term used by phenomenologists, refers to how these boundaries are formed through a combination of physiological feedback loops and habitual usage. An experienced tennis player, for example, frequently feels proprioceptive coherence with the racquet, experiencing it as if it were an extension of her arm. In much the same way, an experienced computer user feels proprioceptive coherence with the keyboard, experiencing the screen surface as a space into which her subjectivity can flow. ” (1999, 88)
It could be argued that, in McLuhan’s terms, proprioceptive coherence comes with a price; namely some form of autoamputation must occur in order for the subject to be able to extend itself through new technology. As hinted above, the form of the medium then becomes a relevant factor: the movement of the tennis racquet in sync with the human body pertains only to the physical, mass-force structures between material objects, while the computer demands that the subject – in addition to yielding to the kinesthetic coherence of the keyboard – concede to the informational patterns and logics of the computer. By unconsciously yielding to the intruding material and informational forces the human use of technology becomes possible but, at the same time, we are rendered quite oblivious to the effects of this tendency to the human condition itself. Whatever the form and nature of the medium that finally obsolesces PC as the leading human extension, we can be sure that it involves us more totally and only after have we become accustomed to it, can we truly understand what the previous form, computer and its related extensions, contributed to the human condition.
