Figure/Ground in the Work of Marshall McLuhan

Saturday, May 14, 2011, 1pm

Co-presented with McLuhan 100, the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Faculty of Information, Coach House Institute and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

The conference will look at McLuhan’s concepts of figure/ground providing an in depth context to the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography festival investigation of the way photography mediates how we perceive, recognize and experience the rapidly changing world around us. CONTACT 2011 explores the tensions between humanity and nature, from the figure in the landscape to the effect of human intervention on the ground.

Featuring Philip Marchand, author of The Medium and the Messenger and respondents Dr. Peter Nesselroth, Professor Emeritus, French Studies, University of Toronto and Dr. Kevin Eldred, Post Doctoral Student, Philosophy, University of Toronto. Introductory remarks will be made by Dr Domenico Pietropaolo, Principal of St. Michael College in the University of Toronto and Dr. Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Faculty of Information Coach House Institute, University of Toronto.

Moderated by Dr. Seamus Ross, Dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Information