“The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way.” Marshall McLuhan
World shaped by text and technology
While searching for meaning within images, text, and technologies, I came across this quote from Marshall McLuhan. It brought together the concept of how text and technology are forever linked. It was first through the spoken word and then through the printed word that technological advances are realized. Text and technology have shaped and changed the way humans understand their environment. It continues to bring meaning to our world and our place in it.
Technology is defined with words like knowledge, art, skill, craft, technique, and method. It encompassed the ideas of teaching, creating and achieving. Each of these words brings some meaning to the concept of technology. For me, technology is about the tools that humans use to create and grasp the environment in new ways. It may be a stick drawing an image in the sand, a paintbrush outlining a character symbolizing an object, a pen crafting text on a page, or a computer creating images, text and sound, but it is all technology in the hands of the human. It is all a way to recreate and grasp our thoughts, words, actions and images, to bring meaning to our world.
