Lessons in retrospect:

a McLuhan reading of the controversy surrounding Michael Elion’s Perceiving freedom (2014)

Abstract

This article1 explores the convoluted debate and spaces of intersection between Michael Elion’s recent public art installation, Perceiving freedom (2014) and its subsequent defacement by The Tokolos Stencil Collective. This article employs the media-orientated lens of Marshall McLuhan’s work Understanding media (1964). The application of McLuhan’s work in present-day Cape Town allows for a more dialogical understanding, and sheds light on why Elion’s work was controversial even before it had any meaning attached to it. This ‘technique of insight … is necessary for media study, since no medium has its meaning or existence alone, but only in constant interplay with other media’ (McLuhan 1964:26). This article considers the contention around Perceiving freedom both before and after the ‘attack’, in order to better understand the dynamics at play. Lastly, McLuhan’s ideas are used as a lens through which to understand the dialogical, yet unseen, forces at play.