Upcoming Events (Spring '98)

Monday Night Seminar on March 2nd, Many Dimensions of Marshall McLuhan, Dr. Liss Jeffrey presents fragments from her McGill doctoral dissertation, "The Heat & The Light of Marshall McLuhan: A 1990s Reappraisal", moderated by Dr. Eric McLuhan.
As part of our Wednesday Afternoon Salon, on March 4, 4-6pm at the Coach House, Dr. Liss Jeffrey, Dr. Eric McLuhan and Felix Stalder will be presenting a continuation of previous discussion on Heidegger and McLuhan, focusing on the Michael Heim article "The Computer as Component".
On Thursday, March 5th, as part of our Policy Lecture Series "Canada by Design", Montreal visionary, wireless entrepreneur, CEO of Telesystems and author of "The Media and the Muse" Charles Sirois, presents his vision of a future knowledge nation, the "Wireless World" at the Faculty of Information Studies, 140 St. George Street, room 205, from 4-6pm. Please e-mail us at bydesign@fis.utoronto.ca to register for attendance.
On Fridays March 6, 13, 20 & Saturdays March 7, 14, 21 from 2-4pm, volunteers are invited to explore the web and participate in "web-work" and moderator training at the Coach House.
On Monday March 9, from 7:30-9:30pm, Dr. Lynn Holden, Academic Technology Liaison, in the Centre for Academic Technology at the Information Commons, presents on "Interactive Ancient Egypt", an exploration into the posibilities for creating a self-contained dynamic visual program suitable for use in an electronic classroom, for presentation in a kiosk or education room, in a museum and/or also for the general public as a commercial product.
The program addresses issues of visual literacy, content adaptation and hypermedia design . The forms and functions are a pointer towards a synthetic integrative approach to providing a discovery based example of new digital learning materials.
Lynn is an academically trained conceptual artist working with digital multimedia to demonstrate content issues for immersive and virtual learning environments. In "earlier lives", Lynn was Curator of the Egyption Museum of San Jose, researcher at the VR-SMLAB of Carnegie Mellon University, research scientist at New York University, Associate Dean of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University and Egyptologist at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
On Wednesday March 11, from 4-6pm, multi-media designer, creator of "My City", Gary Schwartz speaks and demonstrates at the Coach House. His topic is technology, art and design. The Canada by design project continues to explore "democracy as participant design" and how to expand the circle of policy making. With Dr Liss Jeffrey (executive producer, McLuhan Program & Canada by Deisgn) and Dr Lynn Holden, Centre for Academic technologies.
Thursday, March 12, the McLuhan Program's Canada by Design, Policy Lecture Series, is pleased to announce the visit of Minister of Industry, John Manley, who will offer his insight on "A National Vision: Designing a Canadian Knowledge Nation". All audience members interested in attending *** at special time *** from 12-2pm, please e-mail us to reserve your seats at bydesign@fis.utoronto.ca -- thank you.

Monday Night Seminar, March 16, as a continuation and exploration of technology & design, multi-media artist  Stephano Cagol  presents at the Faculty of Information Studies, McLuhan Program video conference room, room 307, from 7:30-9:30pm.

On March 18, as part of our continuing Wednesday Afternoon Salon at the Coach House from 4-6pm, Felix Stalder leads a discussion on the work of Bruno Latour.
Thursday March 19, Canada by Design Policy Lecture Series continued...City Television's Moses Znaimer presents on "Broadcasting the Country's Conversations: Personal Media by Design" at the Faculty of Information Studies, 140 St. George Street, room 205. Please e-mail us for audience registration in advance. 4 - 6 pm.
Monday Night Seminar, March 23, at the Faculty of Information Studies, room 307. Janos Sugar: "The Reinforcement of the Center: Art, New Media and the East European Experience"

Janos Sugar is a Budapest, Hungary-based media artist, teacher and writer. He produced his first experimental films in the early 1980s at the legendary Bela Balazs studios, co-founded the Intermedia Department of the Art Academy in Budapest where he is currently teaching and where he organized a series of conferences "Metaforum 1-3" in the early nineties.
More information:

Media Research Foundation http://www.mrf.hu
A recent interview with Janos Sugar, conducted by Geert Lovink for Nettime http://www.tao.ca/fire/nettime/0033.html
Thursday March 26, at room 205, 140 St George St., FIS, *** special time *** from 12-2pm, Canada by Design Policy Lecture Series presents Minister of Heritage, Sheila Copps on "A cultural vision for a future knowledge nation". E-mail us at bydesign@fis.utoronto.ca for attendence.
March 30, Monday Night Seminar, at FIS, room 307, 7:30-9:30pm, James Mercer presents a performance piece/workshop on Nature & Art (Diazo Photogram), Global Education, entitled "Art, Imagination and Praxis: Visual Spacial Thinking and the Intelligence of the Hand". James is currently working on "World Building and Art-Science Cyberworlds- building new tools and resources for the 21st Century" for Canada & Latin America. James is a MSTE (Mathematics, Science & Technology in Education) M. Education candidate at Queen's University, currently studying with the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology
Dr Eric McLuhan concludes the Monday Night seminar series "Many dimensions of Marshall McLuhan" at FIS 140 St george St, 7:30 - 9:30 in room 728. All welcome.

Past Events (Spring '98)

Here is an update and invitation for all to attend the following up-coming events for February/'98! We hope to see you there!
1) Feb. 2: Monday Night Seminar for Part III of III video-conference with Tokyo Japan and speaker, Bob Logan, author of "The Fifth Language" offers his contribution on the topic of "Language in the Age of the Computer". At FIS, 140 St. George Street, room 307 from 8-10pm with Eric McLuhan as Moderator.
2) February 4th, Wednesday Afternoon Salon, an informal open-topic discussion for all interested. At the Coach House, 39a Queen's Park Crescent East from 4-6pm.
3) Thursday Feb. 5th, as part of the Policy Lecture Series, Richard Stursberg, President of Canadian Cable Television Association and former Assistant Deputy Minister for Communication offers his insight on "TeleCable Communications: Home Wired" with respondent Prof. Fred Fletcher of York University. At FIS, 140 St. George Street, room 205, from 4-6pm.
4) Feb. 9, Monday Night Seminar-McLuhan member Joel Alleyne, President and CEO of Crucible Management Solutions speaks in a public forum on "Organizational Informatics" from 7:30-9:30pm at FIS, 140 St. George, room 728.
5) February 11, Wednesday Afternoon Salon, "Designing Multi-media for Policy Making", with speaker John Robinson, Director of Sustainable Development Institute at the University of British Columbia. Location to be announced.
6) Thursday, February 12th, 1998, Policy Lecture Series offers an innovative discussion on "Designing the Rules of the Road for a Canadian Knowledge Nation" with Peter Grant of McCarthy Tetrault, media policy expert and respondents, Paul Audley, cultural policy expert- author of "Canada's Cultural Industries", Adam Froman of Interactive Multimedia Arts and Technologies Association, and Wendy Cukier of Ryerson Polytechnical University. At FIS, 140 St. George Street, room 205 from 4-6pm. Please register in advance to nancy@mcluhan.utoronto.ca.
7) READING WEEK. Feb. 16 - Feb. 22. No scheduled events during this time.
8) February 25, Wednesday Afternoon Salon continues the discussion on McLuhan and Heiddeger from 4-6pm at the Coach House. Open to all interested in attending. Copies of the article by Michael Heim are available at the Coach House.
9) February 26, Thursday Policy lecture series on the topic of "An Imagined Community" with prominent artists, both members of McLuhan Techno-Art Unit Vera Frankel, (known for her contribution in "The memory Project"), and David Rokeby, and Gary Farmer of Aboriginal Voices .
For more information on our Policy Lecture Series, Canada by Design, please visit our website, http://www.candesign.utoronto.ca. For Inquiries, please call Nancy at 978-7026.

Past Events (Winter '97)

Dec. 1, Monday Night Seminar- Many Dimensions of Marshall McLuhan series continues, with host Eric McLuhan
Regrets from BW Powe, but we are delighted to announce: McLuhan Scholars Group member, Frank Zingrone, professor of Communications from York University, and co-author of "The Essential McLuhan", speaks on McLuhan the man and his impact at 140 St. George, room 728. 7:30 - 9:30 pm.
Dec. 2, December workshops/brainstorming.. for those interested in exploring New Media, the McLuhan Program starts a three day workshop on website construction, audio-video streaming, and VRML. The "Canada by Design" website is under construction, and theory and practice will be combined in these convivial sessions.
Dec. 3, Wednesday Afternoon Salon- McLuhan Program research associate Dr. Francois LaChance will be speaking at the Coach House from 4-6pm on his research project "the Four Cardinal Virtues of Hyper Text"
Dec. 4, Centre for Academic Technologies staff member and McLuhan Program associate Lynn Holden presents the KMDI lecture on "online learning." Thursday 4 - 5:30pm, Faculty of Information Studies, 140 St George St, room 205.
Dec. 5, FIS brown bag research lunch. Dr Liss Jeffrey presents a summary of her research project "The medium is the curriculum: new media and literacies" FIS 140 St George St, dean's conference room.
Dec. 8, NO more MOnday night seminars until Jan. 12th, when Derrick deKerckhove speaks in the "many Dimensions of Marshall McLuhan" series.
Dec. 9 - 11. 6 - 9pm. The workshops/brainstorms continue...
Dec. 10, Wednesday Afternoon Salon- Eric McLuhan and the salon group conclude "The Tetrads" theme for 1997 at the Coach House from 4-6pm
Dec. 15-17. 6 - 9 pm. The workshops/brainstorms continue. Volunteers needed. Call for details.
Dec. 17, Wednesday salon series. The information ecology group, Felix Stalder, chair, concludes its theme session for 1997.
Watch for the "Canada by design" series coming January 15. Check www.fis.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/candesign
For graduate courses, please check our web site or call us.

Past Events (Fall '97)

If you are within physical range, we also invite you to attend the events and courses offered at the Program. Two of special interest are coming up soon.
Beginning Sept. 10th, the McLuhan Program launches a new Wednesday seminar series, from 4 - 6 pm in the director's conference room at the historic Coach House, 39a Queen's Park Crescent East. While our successful Monday Night Seminars (moderated by Jesse Hirsh) continue to be open to members of the public, the Wednesday seminars are designed for those with some background in McLuhan's thinking or advanced university level work and discussion. During the first month, Program members will present themes developed previously as we resume the ongoing reflections of the program.
Wednesday September 10: "Information Ecology." Inspired by McLuhan, FIS PhD candidate and McLuhan Program member Felix Stalder presents version 1 of this collaborative effort, followed by a moderated discussion. Felix Stalder writes:

"New media are not bridges between man and nature: they are 
nature."
                           - Marshall McLuhan, 1969

Media build an integrated environment based on flows of information. Increasingly, this environment provides the primary setting for human agency. Information ecology aims at understanding the properties of this environment in order to use its potential, avoid its dangers and influence its development positively. ...
The full text of the paper can be found at the McLuhan site
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/infoeco.html
The online and offline discussion resumes with invited response on Wednesday September 24th.
Wednesday September 17: "The Tetrads." Based on work with his father, which resulted in publication of the McLuhans' book, Laws of the Media, Eric McLuhan leads a discussion and exploration. His paper will be available on the site. The online and offline discussion resumes Wednesday October 1st.
Wednesday October 8: "Research and New media" Dr Gale Moore, associate director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute, sociologist and research librarian presents reflections on her ongoing research into human interaction with new technologies. Members of the Program units comment on the multiple research projects in progress.
On Saturday October 4th, the McLuhan Program and the Association for Media Literacy host a one day think tank on "New Directions in Media Education." What impact does the shift from TV to PC media have on teaching critical mediacy skills? Is it time for a new consortiuum of teachers, researchers, citizens and media activists to work to ensure that media literacy education is integrated across the curriculum?
Time: 9 am - 3 pm.
Location: Faculty of Information Studies, 140 St George St. (north of Harbord), Room 728.
RSVP/Information: 416-978-7026. Join us in person, share your reflections, or send your comments. The experiment continues at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto. We will keep you informed.
Liss Jeffrey
Executive producer
The McLuhan Program