Spiral and Vortex: Robert Smithson and the Cinematic Spaces of Wyndham Lewis and Marshall McLuhan

Abstract

Background The author argues for a reconsideration of Robert Smithson's relationship to the spatial discourse and proto-media studies of Wyndham Lewis and his Canadian protégé Marshall McLuhan. Analysis Through a comparative reading of a lesser-known Lewis text and Smithson's photoessays and related earthworks, the article sets out to re-evaluate the American artist's mock- Platonic "earth maps" as mobilizing cinematic and spatial metaphors deployed by Lewis' satirical travel writings; in particular, Lewis' exploration of Atlantean images of postnational space as an alternative to a time-obsessed modernity in Filibusters in Barbary (1932). Conclusion and implications The cinematic geographies of Smithson, Lewis, and McLuhan emerge as allied responses to, and radical reworkings of, Bergson's discourse on time and media that materialize a shared critical optics and quest for utopia propelled by the lingering spectre of global conflict.