Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan

iProbes and iPhone Photographs

By (author) Rita Leistner

Publication date:

15 January 2014

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

229x229mm
9x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783200306

In this timely and highly original merging of theory and practice, conflict photographer and critical theorist Rita Leistner applies Marshall McLuhan’s semiotic theories of language, media and technology to iPhone photographs taken during a military embed in Afghanistan. In a series of what Leistner calls iProbes – a portmanteau of iPhone and probe – Leistner reveals the face of war through the extensions of man. As digital photography becomes more ubiquitous, and as the phones we carry with us become more advanced, the process of capturing images becomes more democratic and more spontaneous. Leistner’s photos result from both access and impulse. Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan will appeal anyone with an interest in the conflicts in the Middle East, the seminal communications theorist, or iPhone apps and photography.

Foreword
Hipstamatic Blues by Julian Stallabrass

The Process

Smartphones + War in Afghanistan
Marshall McLuhan b.1911 in Alberta, Canada
The embed
Semiotics
Figure + Ground
Reading McLuhan
Musa Qala
The social media
River City
iPhone + the Hipstamatic app
The thingness of things
The iProbes
Prophylactive therapy

The Extensions of Man

Camera obscura
Electric light
Typewriter
Telephone
Phonograph
Smart phone

McLuhan + Fiore + The Printed Book

The iProbes

iProbe 01_ The iPhone Camera + Hipstamatic app
iProbe 02_Phone Texting
iProbe 03_Body Armour
iProbe 04_Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs)
iProbe 05_Figure / Ground
iProbe 06_Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)
Made of Wood
iProbe 07_Fuel Dispensers
iProbe 08_Loudspeakers and Sermons from the Mosque
iProbe 09_Mobile Telephony:“Can You Hear Me Now?”
iProbe 10_The Written Word: “Proceed At Your Own Risk”
iProbe 11_Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs)
iProbe 12_Sandbags and HESCO Concertina Barriers
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:00–11:10)

The Tetrads: Laws of Media

'This book is astonishing!'