York University
2001 TEL
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON  M3J 1P3
416.736.2100 ext. 33616

Concordia University
Department of
Communication Studies
7141 Sherbrooke W.,
L-CJ 3.329
Montreal, QC  H4B 1R6
514.848.2424, ext. 2535

Project

Current

The Marconi Galaxy: Culture, Technology and Myth-Making

Description

In 2009, the MML is collaborating with Canadian and Italian partners for the 100th anniversary of Marconi's contribution to the invention of one of the earliest modes of wireless communication, the radio.

Research Collaborators: Barbara Crow (York University), Seth Feldman (York), Elena Lamberti (University of Bologna), Michael Longford (York), Kim Sawchuk (Concordia University), Martin Stiglio (Italian Cultural Institute), Barbara Valotti (Guglielmo Marconi Foundation)
 
Research Assistants: Matteo Bandini (Bologna), Sara Cwynar (York), Mél Hogan (Concordia), Tracy Ma (York), Christopher Moorehead (York), Sanja Obradovic (York), Andrea Zeffiro (Concordia) 
 
This research project coincides with the Marconi Foundation's year-long celebration of Marconi’s 1909 Noble Prize in physics. This important international moment offers an occasion to reassess and revisit Marconi’s inventions at the dawn of a new wireless era of the Internet and mobile computing devices. In the past hundred years, we have moved from the presence of analogue-based stationary transmitters and receivers to the use of mobile digital devices – from a broadcasting model predicated on the movement of information from one to many to new modes of communication that are many to many and highly interactive. These reverberations were set into motion with Marconi's single 'click' created by an electromagnetic impulse first received in St John’s, Newfoundland. Today, these same impulses are capable of transmitting sound and moving images in real time from 'terra firma' to satellites circling the earth.
 
It is precisely these reverberations, impulses and interactions that our research team seeks to investigate, interrogate and harness creatively for both exhibitions and academic purposes. For these reasons the project collaborators have chosen to with the metaphoric trajectory dubbed by Marshall McLuhan – the “Marconi Galaxy.” 
 
Funded by the SSHRC International Opportunities Fund (Canada), and the Istituto de Studi Avanzati (Italy).
 

www.marconigalaxy.net