INTERMEDIATION: Arts' Contribution to General Integrative Theory

Intermediation approaches integration via medium, as does interdisciplinarity via field/content, while both involve concerns of methodology. "Media" are distinguished by the perceptual acts required for their constitution (cf McLuhan, 1964) by the relationship to the body which they institute. Intermediation integrates, without eliminating, multiple perceptual acts and bodily relationships. Thus hypertext tends not to be an inter-medium, because its output is usually in one medium (video or print). while classrooms are almost always inter-media of print, spatio/ temporal design, performance, and imagery (Carp, 1991). Artists, designers, and anthropologists of material culture have most thoroughly and consistently investigated intermediation. Artists and designers adopt intermediation as a communicative strategy; anthropologists posit intermediation as a site for cultural resistance, post-colonial creativity and non-Eurocentric