​Over the last two decades, EEG technology moved from neuroscience labs into our living rooms—and, for those who trust it with their sleep, our beds. Sleek headsets promise to visualize your focus and calm, to harness your potential and optimize you to the max. That imagery draws on transhumanist narratives, reductive science storytelling, and the myth that self-tracking is an unambiguous good.

​These days, wellness culture, biohacking grinders, and the neurotech industry run on a shared slogan: biometric self-surveillance is productive, even responsible, behavior. That slogan has hardened into something like common sense. Nowhere more so than among Bay Area tech workers who pitch on weekdays and optimize on weekends.

​...are you one of them? Are you intrigued by the idea of a quantified self?

​If so, join us September 20th. Oura ring optional.

​This Month’s Reading:
Gardner, P., & Wray, B. (2013). From lab to living room: Transhumanist imaginaries of consumer brain wave monitors. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 3.

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​Access Reading
Also Included with RSVP: You’ll receive the reading link in your confirmation email.

​About Paula Gardner:
Paula Gardner is a Media Studies and Science and Technology Studies scholar and Associate Professor at OCAD University in Toronto, where her practice-based research interrogates the cultural and computational logics embedded in new media technologies. Her work spans critical writing, documentary filmmaking, and research-creation projects that probe how users can reclaim agency over the devices and data that increasingly define them.

​About Britt Wray:
Britt Wray has traveled far from the EEG lab since this article was written. Now Director of CIRCLE—a Stanford Psychiatry initiative focused on community-minded interventions for resilience, climate leadership, and emotional wellbeing—she has become one of the leading voices on the psychological dimensions of the climate crisis. Her book Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award.

​About the Cybersentics Book Club:

​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).

​Accessibility:

​All ages welcome. A high school reading level or above is recommended.

​In-person meeting hosted upstairs in the Gray Area Incubator, not wheelchair or mobility accessible.

​View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at info@grayarea.org with any accommodation requests.