Hypnotized by their rear-view mirrors, philosophers and scientists alike tried to focus the <i>figure</i> of man in the old <i>ground</i> of nineteen… - Marshall McLuhan

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Hypnotized by their rear-view mirrors, philosophers and scientists alike tried to focus the figure of man in the old ground of nineteenth-century industrial mechanism and congestion. They failed to bridge from the old figure to the new. It is man who has become both figure and ground via the electrotechnical extension of his awareness. With the extension of his nervous system as a total information environment, man bridges art and nature. (p. 11)