Medium chooses the messenger

If ‘medium is the message’ then the ‘medium chooses the messenger’.

In early October 2017, I went to a hardware store in the local market to buy packaging thread for a wall art project that I was working on. They did not have any threads. So I walked into a fancy store instead where the lady showed me stitching threads. I was surprised by the variety and shades of colours available. I was clearly enamoured by the sheer possibility of using the colourful threads to make art. I purchased a whole carton of threads by carefully choosing colours that I liked.

I was in love with the rich variety of colours.

At first the new medium was unwieldy. It refused to obey me. I tried creating object drawings but failed miserably. Gradually it taught me its constraints.

“Nature always begins by resisting the draughtsman,
but he who truly takes it seriously doesn’t let himself be deterred by the resistance; (finally), nature and an honest draughtsman see eye to eye.”

- Vincent Van Gogh

I learnt to pick abstract themes to create art.

I learnt to pick abstract themes to create art using this new medium of cotton threads. The threads led me by my hand and taught me their ways. Over a period of time I understood the medium. I learnt to let go and allow the threads to lead me when creating art. While I exercised control, I never forced the thread. I let it fall on its own and chart its own direction. This mutual respect lead to the emergence of interesting artwork over the next three months. I was not the creator but merely a facilitator. I was not leading the thread, rather it was the thread which was leading me.

A Gandhian moment. I sit on the ground and spin thread. There is an intimate relationship between me and the thread.

“The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association. Indeed, it is only too typical that the “content” of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.”

- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964, p.9

I have my own interpretation of McLuhan’s ‘Medium is the message’ in the context of my art. It simply means that the threads that I work with are the actual message. My art work is not the message. The colour threads as a medium are made of cotton. They are eco friendly. That according to me, is the actual message conveyed by my art through the use of this medium.

The use of colour threads as a ‘medium’ conveys the ‘message’ of being ‘eco conscious’.

Looking back, I feel that the threads seduced me. They enticed me with their charm. The ‘medium’ chose me to be a part of their story. I was merely the ‘messenger’. The medium chose the messenger.

A divine intervention. The lady at the fancy store gifted me colourful threads.

I have therefore come to conclude that if the ‘medium is the message’ then the ‘medium chooses the messenger’.