Fast Drying, Long Lasting: A Recent Evolution of the Technological Function of Wheat Paste Posters

While there has been a lot of work applying the Toronto School of Thought to new and developing media, there is less to be said about media which is being adapted to current context. This paper explores the recent explosion of wheat paste posters in Washington, D.C. through the lens of the scholars Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Umberto Eco. It analyzes an index of over 200 wheat paste posters and categorizes them based on the relationship between the poster and the receiver. My paper addresses the issue of this return to the wheat paste poster as a form of political messaging through Innis’ lens of time- and space-oriented media, and combines this with influences from McLuhan and the argument for guerilla media that Eco proposes. Together, alongside a historical view of the wheat paste posters of Gran Fury, these authors provide a strong foundation from which to constellate the current usage of wheat paste posters in comparison to the past. By closely examining this function of the medium, this project sheds new light on the often historicized medium of the wheat paste poster in the modern digital age.