Undermining Media

A distinction between the terms medium and media, as can be found in the work of Marshall McLuhan, is taken as the starting point for developing a materialist theory of media. Media, as 'cultural techniques', are understood to be undermined by the material contingencies of the medium which constitutes an indifferent channel for symbolic content. This process of undermining reveals something of the medium itself as an affective and influential matter. The affective potential and occasional surfacing of the medium as material substrate is explored through the work of three artists: Will Schrimshaw, Martin Howse and Jonathan Kemp.