“Shape your tools, or you will be shaped by them.”

A 10-minute Youtube video about “the hardware hacking community” in Montreal is now making the rounds on some of the big blogs, so maybe you’ve seen it (though if not, check out here via the Unconsumption blog, where Tom Hosford posted it several days ago). It’s worth a look.

Plus: I have a question:

Toward the end a guy remarks: “I forget who said it, but the philosophy behind it is: Shape your tools, or you will be shaped by them.”

I’m very interested in that, but my Google-fu is evidently not up to the task of figuring out the source. So does anybody know: Who did say it? What’s the reference to?

UPDATE: The answer (see comments) seems to be Marshall McLuhan — sort of. Apparently McLuhan said: “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.” That’s a different sentiment than what I took the hacker/maker to be expressing. But it seems likely that this is more or less what he was thinking of (and he hacked it?). Still accepting counter-evidence or theories if you have them, of course.

Here’s how the video is described, by the by:

“A look into the hardware hacking community in Montreal, including the Foulab collective. Why are more and more hobbyists experimenting with hacks and circuit bends? What relationship does this imply about consumer society and technological advancement? Is this a real-world analog of ‘user generated content’?”