70 NW Couch Street Portland
OR 97209
What is the current state of reality? Virtual, augmented, merged, and mixed realities are all hyped in recent announcements promoting new devices, prototypes, platforms and startups. Artist, designers, and technologists are just beginning to tackle the challenge of being social with technologies that in their current form tend toward bulky face, eye and ear covering gear. Questions about the importance of our sense of embodiment and kinesthesia also arise in relationship to these new experience machines. What is it about our cultural moment that accounts for this blossoming in the field of immersive technologies? Has the technology simply matured enough for a wider market, is there an escapist cultural element? What are the other factors at play?
This summit explores the social ramifications, opportunities, and trajectories of these new immersive technologies through the lens of art, research, and design. It brings together artists, technologists, designers, and social thinkers for a day of talks, demonstrations, and experiences. It is intended to break open the conversation and tease out distinctions amongst these various realities and how these intersect and mesh with the body social.
Agenda
9:30-10:30a Coffee + pastries + demos
10:30-11:45a session 1
– Tawny Schlieski – Challenge + Importance of Diversity in VR
– Stephanie Mendoza Shapeshifter Culture
– Donna Davis Diversity Access Gaps and Benefits for Work
– Jamie Sherman VR for diversity: working with NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism
11:45-1:00p lunch (independent recommend Pine St Mkt – nearby food court)
1:00-2:15p session 2
– Matt Henderson – VR social experiments and the emerging Metafesto
– Jeremy Rotsztain Mantissa: an historic cinema project
– David Reuter Site specific VR 3d worlds and headsets
– Theo Downes-LeGuin exhibition design for new technologies
2:30-4:00p session 3
– Amy Hillman Creating Shared Holographic Experiences
– John Sherry – Intel Research on immersive experiences
– Reese Bowes – Conscilience: presence and affordance in art
– U of O Art and Technology: advanced student projects
4:00-5:30p demos, hors doeuvres, and schmoozing
5:30-6:30p interactive performance – harmonic laboratory (http://harmoniclab.org/intermedia/)