This Month's Reading:

Havers, G. N. (2025). The Medium Is Still the Message: Marshall McLuhan for Our Time. Cornell University Press.

The book will be made accessible privately to those registered.

Join us this March at Gray Area's Cybernetics Book Club.

Marshall McLuhan was by no means a prophet, but he was certainly a pioneer in the study of the ways electric media transform society. How are people changed by the instruments they employ? What do media do to the people who use them? These are the core questions that provide a framework for evaluating our current state of culture at large.

Taking up a recent book by Grant Havers on McLuhan for our book club session, we will attempt to synthesize previously explored concepts of biological feedback, external conditioning ("mind control"), cognitive liberty, and brain media with the theory of the transformation of society, applying them to thinking about the digital age. Viewing technology not as an antithesis to nature but as a second nature, we will focus on a few questions:

– How innovation leads to organized ignorance (McLuhan), or, in other words, how new devices leave those without access or knowledge behind;

– When the crisis of literacy began (in the US), and whether reading books remains relevant amid the technology-driven shift to post-literacy;

– Why (if at all) digital media and ubiquitous large language models impede our capacity to think freely.

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.

Grant Havers is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Trinity Western University, a Canadian Christian liberal arts university. He is the author of “Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy” and “Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love.”