Artists 2
At any rate, in experimental art, men are given the exact specifications of
coming violence to their own psyches from their own counter-irritants
(self-amputations) or technology. For those parts of ourselves that we thrust out in
the form of new invention are attempts to counter or neutralize collective
pressures and irritations. But the counter-irritant usually proves a greater plague
than the initial irritant, like a drug habit. And it is here that the artist
can show us how to "ride with the punch," instead of "taking it on the chin."
It can only be repeated that human history is a record of "taking it on the
chin."
- Marshall and Eric McLuhan