When Sputnik went up on October 4, 1957, it put the planet inside a manmade environment for the first time. Spaceship Earth has no passengers, only crew. Sputnik transformed the planet into Spaceship Earth with a programmed problem. Ecology became the name of the game from that moment on. Nature ended. The planet became an art form inside a manned capsule, and life will never be the same on this planet again. Nature ended and art took over. Ecology is art.
“Living in an Acoustic World,” Public Lecture at the University of South Florida, 1970. “Marshall McLuhan Speaks” Transcript, p 11
Year: 1970
Chapters:
Ecology | Planet, Nature
↪ Also at #1647
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan