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ARTBOOK BLOGEventsStore NewsMuseum Stores of the MonthNew Title ReleasesStaff PicksImage GalleryBooks in the MediaExcerpts & EssaysArtbook InterviewsEx LibrisAt First SightThe Artbook 2024 Gift GuidesArtbook Featured Image ArchiveArtbook D.A.P. Events ArchiveDATE 7/19/2025 Artbook at MoMA PS1 Bookstore presents Richard Berkowitz, Linda H. Scruggs and Ivy Kwan Arce on AIDS Activist LegaciesDATE 7/15/2025 Join us at the Atlanta Gift & Home Summer Market 2025DATE 7/14/2025 Boyhood and friendship through the re-imagined memories of Henry O. HeadDATE 7/11/2025 Join us at the San Francisco Art Book Fair, 2025!DATE 7/11/2025 'Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery' opens at Colby MuseumDATE 7/6/2025 'Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me' is a book for lifeDATE 7/3/2025 This holiday weekend, consider the Lobster!DATE 7/1/2025 Hot Child in the City: Summertime Staff Picks, 2025DATE 6/30/2025 Head Hi New York Book Club presents 'Jasper Morrison: A Book of Things'DATE 6/30/2025 Raise your spades for Ron Finley, Gangsta GardenerDATE 6/27/2025 In Kent Monkman, a little mischief may lead to monumental changeDATE 6/26/2025 1920s Japanese graphic design in a playful boxed postcard setDATE 6/25/2025 Rizzoli presents Anderson Zaca with Thom (Panzi) Hansen for the NYC launch of 'Fire Island Invasion: A Day of Independence' | DOCUMENTA NOTEBOOKS: PAUL RYANTHOMAS EVANS | DATE 7/29/2011Documenta Notebooks: Paul Ryan, Excerpts from an InterviewIn his contribution to the Documenta Notebook series, New York video artist Paul Ryan talks to Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri. In the following excerpt, Ryan recalls his years as teaching assistant to Marshall McLuhan at Fordham University. (The numerals used to denote the speakers are intended by the interviewers to "allow an opening, a depersonalization and a movement to happen between the three of us." [3] is Ryan.)[3] McLuhan was brilliant and he had a lot of guts. I had an office two doors down from him, so I got the chance to familiarize myself with his way of operating. Amazing man. Always reading an eclectic selection of books, always probing: “The sense ratio of a Russian peasant is like tar.” “The New York Daily News has two front pages. One of them is on the back.” “War is education. Education is war.” It got to a point where I said to myself: “This man is either full of it or what he has got to say is really worthwhile. I will never know unless I test it out for myself.” So, I got hold of some video equipment and started experimenting. If the medium is the message, what are we to make of the medium of portable video? My first concern was to distinguish video from television, so in 1968 I coined the aphorism “VT is not TV,” and went on from there.[1] Would you agree with commentators who say McLuhan was naďve?[3] When McLuhan came to New York one of the things he wanted to do was invite members of the Mafia to a public forum about how they did business without paper. How they kept their word without paper. His two friends John Culkin and Ted Carpenter persuaded Marshall it was not a good idea. I’d say yes, in ways Marshall was naďve, but that naďveté made possible the unique insights of a well-educated, fearless innocent with first-rate rhetorical skills. Maybe a McLuhan-Mafia dialogue would have significantly illuminated the oral/literate/electric schema. [1] In your encounter with McLuhan, what were the doubts that led you to say, “I will have to test it out for myself”? [3] I couldn’t get the politics; the politics were not clear. I’d say to McLuhan, “So, what do we do?” He’d say, “Well, it is too early to tell.” When you’re a young guy with the Vietnam War burning on your butt, that’s not the kind of thing that you want to hear. You want to get something done. McLuhan was an academic; he could say, “Wait, wait, we don’t understand.” He was not offering any strategy other than the traditional artistic one; you contribute to the perception of problems and move on. For me, that wasn’t good enough. I was looking for both social change and aesthetic concern. |