from 'understanding media' by marshall mcluhan:

as our proliferating technologies have created a whole series of new environments, men have become aware of the arts as 'anti-environments' or 'counter-environments' that provide us with a means of perceiving the environment itself.
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today technologies and their consequent environments succeed each other so rapidly that one environment makes us aware of the next. technologies begin to perform the function of art in making us aware of the psychic and social consequences of technology.
art as anti-environment becomes more than ever a means of training perception and judgement.