Artist work well as "the antennae of the race" because they use inductive reasoning. Induction is the logical movement from small details to larger concepts. For instance, if you noticed that the sky had gotten dark, the wind had picked up, and the temperature had dropped, you could use inductive reasoning to say that a thunderstorm was coming. Artists are well-practiced in this kind of thinking, because they must pay great attention to details in order to successfully create art. For instance, a painter must consider not only the color of a tree but how that color changes when the light falls on it in order to paint the tree. Artists' inductive skills allow them to notice significant details before the rest of us.

I prefer Ezra Pound's description of artists as "the antennae of the race." I think the negative connotations associated with the McLuhan description of artists as an "early alarm system" limit the role of artists too much. Artists can be an "early alarm system" and warn us of coming dangers, but they can also tell us about coming changes in our society that are neither good nor bad, and they can be the first ones to notice cultural changes that have already happened.

The first picture of the windmills is a good example of an artist using his or her work to warn. The various meanings of the piece have been throughly discussed by previous posters, so I don't think the topic needs to be revisited. I will just say that corporate logos are rarely incorporated into art in order for the artist to communicate to viewers that they should trust the companies depicted, so I think we can safely assume that this piece was intended to serve as a warning. The important part of this piece is that the artist made a conscious decision to embed messages in his or her work. The logos of major corporations are blatant symbols that the artist obviously wanted us to interpret. This piece is a very literal example of the McLuhan quote.

The second picture of windmills is more subtle. I do not believe the artist intended to embed any strong messages in this piece for viewers to interpret. However, the simple fact that the picture is of windmills and that we didn't find it interesting is cause for comment. Assuming the photographer is American, it is only recently that American photographers could easily find windmills to photograph and that American viewers would find modern windmills ordinary. The fact that we now consider windmills ordinary allows us to conclude that the movement towards environmental consciousness has indeed changed the way we view the world. In this way, the artist is acting more like "the antennae of the race" than an "early alarm system." The artist is helping us realize something about ourselves, but he or she most likely did not make a conscious decision to do so, and the cultural change has already happened.

In conclusion, I think the McLuhan quote is better understood when we remember that artists are inductive thinkers. I think it is also important to weigh the role of artists as "the antennae of the race" and as an "early warning system" equally. The two pictures of windmills give a good example of how both McLuhan and Ezra Pound were correct in their descriptions of artists.