This Month's Reading:

Hamilton, K. (2017). Where the Turtles End. Contemporary Arts and Cultures.

Access Reading.

Gray Area is pleased to host a new reading group, the Cybersentics Book Club that will explore the human sensorium through the lens of art and technology.

In the first cycle, Cybersentic's reading list will center key themes related to the bidirectional flow of information between bodies and the environment. The outward perspective examines biofeedback, while the inward perspective focuses on cyborg art.

This book club is a fit for artists, makers, researchers, scholars, engineers, and anyone curious about the integration of technology and art. Join us as we investigate how to enhance our sensory experiences, from biofeedback and sonification to embedding sensors that challenge our perceptions.

Our group's purpose is to cultivate a welcoming community that fosters knowledge-sharing and collaboration. Whether you're seeking to connect with potential collaborators, look for answers to pressing questions, gain critical insights, or engage in peer learning, this is the place for you!

Cybersentics is organized and led by Gray Area Research Fellow Anastasia Chernysheva as part of the Biofeedback Art|Research Network (BARN).

An open-access library that accompanies this book club can be accessed here.

This edition of the book club comes with a Midwestern flavor! In the article on our table, "Where the Turtles End," Kevin Hamilton examines the Adaptive Reorganizing Automaton (ARA), an experimental device developed at the University of Illinois Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) in 1960, tracing how competing approaches to materiality in the history of computation illuminate a persistent tension between consciousness, embodiment, and control.

Did you know that a small university town amid cornfields (Urbana) has been the home of second-order cybernetics, early computing, the first algorithmic music, the Mosaic graphical web browser, and so much more? Now you do — and there's more to that story.

For this meeting, we are trying something new: the session will be held in a hybrid format, welcoming participants from outside the Bay Area to join us online. We are also hosting the article's author, Kevin Hamilton, who will join us virtually as our first guest speaker.

Kevin Hamilton is a scholar, artist, and academic leader whose interdisciplinary work explores how media, technology, and cultural infrastructures shape public life and human flourishing. Based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he serves as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation for Humanities, Arts, and Related Fields, he previously served as Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts. His research spans Cold War visual culture, algorithmic accountability, cybernetics, and digital media ethics, with publications across media studies, communication, and art theory, including Lookout America! The Secret Hollywood Film Studio at the Heart of the Cold War (2019), co-authored with Ned O’Gorman. Hamilton has also contributed significantly to scholarly publishing and interdisciplinary research communities through roles with MIT Press, the New Media Caucus, and arts-integrative research initiatives. Trained at RISD and MIT, he has combined creative practice, scholarship, and institutional leadership throughout his career.

Currently, Kevin serves as an Editor-in-Chief for Leonardo Books at MIT Press.