Category: 2021 (Page 6 of 6)

Join us in the Creative Science Shop where Dr. Mahani will present some insights from two post-COVID studies exploring media technologies and stress.

Six decades ago, the Canadian icon Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The media is the message”. At the time, television was the newest form of communication technology and McLuhan was arguing that the effect of this new medium on our life would not be solely social and political (because of the content), but also physical and physiological (because it touched our nerves).

Simply, McLuhan argued that every form of technology is invented to extend our body and our nervous system. But in order for this extension to happen, we have to replace that body part that we are extending. He argued that this process, of amputation and extension, would stress us as surgery would.

Last year this time, we were suddenly cut off from our communities, and especially from our seniors. Did various Media technologies help us or stress us? Did this process of amputation (social distancing) and extension (Zooming) affect us in the aftermath of COVID-19?

Najmeh Khalili-Mahani is a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer at Concordia University’s PERFORM Centre. She is one of the co-founders of the engAGE Living Lab MediaSpa and her research focuses on screens and stress and specifically, she is interested in developing playful and interactive technologies that assist individuals with chronic health conditions and limited mobility.

Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca

What’s Next in a Pandemic and Post-Pandemic World?

Join us at the next Creative Science Shop to hear Dr. Meghan Joy sharing her work related to Age-friendly Cities and Communities.
Our cities and communities are places that have not always been designed and programmed with the needs of older people in mind.

The Age-friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) agenda is meant to rectify this by making improvements in supports, programs, and infrastructures to meet the needs of older people, as defined by older people in all their diversity. AFCCs have been around for over a decade now and it is time to take stock of what is and is not working with the program, especially in a pandemic and post-pandemic world.

You are invited to a discussion about what more might be needed to make our cities and communities more age-friendly moving forward. Share with us how do you see age-friendly environments in the context of the pandemic and where might creativity fit into the age-friendly policy agenda.

Meghan Joy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. Her research interests include the politics of population ageing, theories and practice of progressive politics and policy in cities, and the political economy of the nonprofit sector.

Select publications include her book The Right to an Age-Friendly City: Redistribution, Recognition, and Senior Citizen Rights in Urban Spaces (MQUP, 2020), and article “Beyond Neoliberalism: A Policy Agenda for a Progressive City” (with Dr. Ronald K. Vogel, Urban Affairs Review, 2021).

Watch an excerpt of Megan Joy’s presentation here:

Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca

engAGE Living Lab is launching the project Neighbourhood Art and Material Exchange in collaboration with Concordia’s Re-Use Centre (CUCCR), West-End Intergenerational Network (WIN), and Extra Miles senior visiting program.

The aim is to develop a sustainable service to distribute free art materials and offer pop-up Art Hives throughout Montreal during the warmer weather.

You can watch highlights of these conversations here:

Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca