McLuhan's Wake - Automobile Technology

1. What human trait or experience does the medium enhance?
You begin with so little to survive just your scenses, your ayes collecting details.

What is the intended function of the medium or technology?
To facilitate the way humans move around.

What does it improve or make more efficient?
Improves the time of travel between places.

Does it extend part of the human body?
The steering wheel is an extension of the arms that guide the automobile and the feet because it allows you to move faster.

One or more of the senses?
Visual senses, sense of touch.

Does it extend an aspect of the human mind, such as memory?
No.

Does it amplify some human capability or augment some form of human action?
Amplifies the human capability to move faster and travel bigger distance in less time.

Does it extend the individual, the group or society?

2. What pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does this medium obsolesce?
The use of a float and a horses.

What older technology does the new medium replace?
The use of a float and a horses.

What does it render unnecessary?
Makes unnecessary walk for a long time to get to another location, or ride a bike.

What procedures does it short-circuit or bypass?
The procedures of travel and event transport objects to different locations.

What happens to the old medium that is rendered obsolescent?
Some of them disappear and others will just lose their popularity, humans won’t use then as often as the new technology.

Does it disappear entirely, become an art object, or find a new niche?
The automobiles and all transportation technologies have become an art object, you can look at cars as art objects.

3. What technology, method, system or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does this medium retrieve?
Automobiles retrieves the technology of the wheel that has been around since its invention, cars where ones built out of wood and now they place wood as a luxury inside the car to make it look more fancy.

What archaic elements are made relevant again?
The use of a parking meter, they used to use a ring where the horses where tide up it was free but now days for cars we use parking meters to have a place to park the car.

What previously marginalized or repressed ideas, practices or artifacts are brought to the fore?
Yes, now days any idea is valid and previous ideas that people thought that never would work now humans are making them work, for example Da Vinci had the idea of a machine that could fly and now we have the airplane.

What aspects of the prehistoric, ancient, medieval or early modern world are revived?
Non, every aspect changes, every day its always new technology implemented.

4. When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the medium reverse into?
It will reverse into an obsolete object and recycled to make new similar objects.

What effects will the medium create that are opposite to what was originally
intended?
It affects the environment, contamination and war.

What are the contradictions inherent in the technology?
The technology is being sold as a safe technology when is not 100% safe, an accident occur and people die.

What is the ecological impact?
Automobiles emit CO2, which has affected the ecology of the world. Has debilitated the ozone layer making poles melt and creating the global warming.

CONCLUSIONS:

Automobiles have been an invention that had help humans grow in a lot of ways, for example cities have grown in a large extent, communication between places are more easy to accomplish. If you look at these aspects you will say that this technology has help humans to be more successful, but at the same time this success is turn into a problem when its out of the human’s ability to manage it. For example in the movie we watched about the technologies it mention how all these technologies have made humans alter their senses. Whit this have been said I relate stress with sickness, now days humans don’t have a healthy life anymore, not just because of the polluted environment we live now days but because of the high speed life we live now.

Automobile has become a big part of humans life, we depend on this technology so much that we feel useless with out it, and because the cities have grown so much distances are larger, moving around without an automobile is almost impossible.