1.11.1 Brain's TV Studio: "We may insist that we see each other out in the left field. But all vision actually operates inside the brain in organic, neuron-transistored, TV sets." (Synergetic Dictionary, pg.199)

1.11.2 Fuller's performances were connected to technology as soon as it became available to him. In the 1930's, while Fuller was conceiving the Dymoxian house and the Dymoxian car, C.B.S. was establishing Experimental T.V. Broadcasting Studios at the Grand Central Station Office Building on 42nd street in New York City. A decade before television was established commercially, Columbia Broadcasting Experimental TV broadcast to approximately a hundred sets of receivers. Fuller was a regular guest performer for Gilbert Seldes, who directed the first television experiments programs. Seldes was someone who recognised mass media's impact and chose Fuller to perform for the cameras. Consequently they became good friends and continued their discussions on media and society. Fuller's Education Automation (1962) evolved from this early introduction to telecommunication.

1.11.2 Seldes was an important personality in his time who helped establish the idea of cultural criticism. It is significant to note that his visionary work was rooted in "hands on" experiences with a variety of media‹he directed plays and movies and wrote radio scripts while writing about culture in a number of literary magazines. In 1924 he wrote Seven Lively Arts, in which he insisted that vaudeville, musical reviews, movies, jazz, and comics should be treated as seriously as opera. In addition to being considered by many as a progenitor of what would become the discipline of cultural studies, he was the founding member of the Annenberg School of Communication in Philadelphia. In an autobiographical essay, he summarises his career as a record of crossing boundaries, with his strongest interest being the crossing of the arts and sciences "so that both are recognised as parts of the humanities." (Kammen, 1996, pg 8)

1.11.3 In 1958 McLuhan acknowledges that he learned a great deal from the work of Seldes in an interview conducted by Seldes himself. Seldes in turn cites Harold Innis, an economic historian, as someone who influenced both himself and McLuhan. He points out that Innis recognised very early on that "any change in information, communication is bound to cause a great readjustment of all the social patterns, the educational patterns, the sources and conditions of political power, public opinion patterns will change." (Seldes, 1958, www.videomcluhan.com/interv2.htm) [top]