Monday Night Seminars — Mcluhan Centre for Culture and Technology

Mcluhan Centre for Culture and Technology
presents:

McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man acts as inspiration for this year’s (2019/20) investigation of machinic logics in culture. Evolving from last year’s considerations in MsUnderstanding Media, the series asks what it looks like if we don’t believe the hype?

Speakers for the Winter 2019 program include: Simone Browne, Shannon Mattern, Zach Blas, plus more soon...

// September 17 //

platform mechanics and the undercommons

Lisa Nakamura—University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Tara McPherson—University of Southern California

// October 1 //

Building: <Black> <Feminist> / <Queer> <Digital> <Justice>
Query: Community Activators

Ladan Siad—Data Justice Researcher, Technoscience Research Unit, Toronto Nasma Ahmed—Director, Digital Justice Lab, Toronto

// October 22 //

CTRL:CMD:EXE <an evening on media war>

Megan Boler—University of Toronto Jeremy Packer—University of Toronto Geoffrey Winthrop-Young—University of British Columbia

// November 5 //

Senses_Sensibilities + Touch_Technology

Rhonda McEwen—University of Toronto David Parisi—College of Charleston

// November 19 //

#Fitter #Happier #MoreProductive

Melissa Gregg—Intel Corporation Allison Hearn—University of Western Ontario Natasha Dow Schull—New York University

// December 3 //

Re/Figuration: Digital Tactics 4 Digital Colonialism

Moreshin Allahyari—New Media Artist, New York City

Sticky Just Don't Work

I'm just trying to cheat my way through position: sticky

Position: Sticky—Not working (it is not very cooperative at all)

The McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology's original constitution acts as a guiding template, not only for what McLuhan intended happen here, but as a framework to explore the relevance of his work in a contemporary landscape. There is a revolving renaissance around McLuhan: he is lauded then dismissed, seemingly put to rest, before being resuscitated once again. While McLuhan himself might not have had his eyes directly on economics, politics, and bodies, if the original theory of the “the medium is the message” is carried through - where the message of the medium is the change in pace, pattern and scale a media introduces into human affairs - then the message of the medium is also an invitation to consider social structures and power dynamics. The McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology is a destination for the interdisciplinary consideration, unraveling, and reconstitution of a McLuhanesque capturing of technological life.