Archive

Spring 2021 #OSSTA Lecture: Valencia James

We are envisioning low-cost open hardware, open source software, that would allow artists to create virtual performances in Mozilla Hubs, which is a social virtuality platform. And throughout this process that was very much spearheaded by my artistic creation of performance in Mozilla Hubs, we came up with an educational program that would allow any artist to create their own live volumetric performance.

Futures Podcast #6: Virtual Therapy, with Michael Carthy

Traditional psychology and counseling will help people understand in a very linear way why they are the way they are. Whereas what I’m really focused on and what I’ve been specializing in for the last number of years is the how. And for me, virtual reality therapy is the how of change.

Futures Podcast #2: Cybersex, with Dr. Trudy Barber

So then I thought right, what happens with an artist who draws the body, who deals with the body all the time? I know, they have affairs with the life model, don’t they? They have their muse. So I thought right, let’s take this, let’s look at technology, let’s have an affair with this tech. Let’s try and put the sex into it. Let’s sex up the technology.

Futures Podcast #4: Emoji Delights, with Carla Gannis

AR mixed reality has more potential, I think. With virtual reality, you’re just somewhere else altogether, right? And VR is all the rage right now. But in terms of disseminating information, in terms of keeping us in touch still with physical, you know. I mean, it’s all real life now. I don’t even distinguish IRL/URL now. I mean it’s all real life. But like, how do we maintain a foot in both simultaneously? Both the virtual and the physical.

Humans as Software Extensions

What is this condition? I would summarize it as people extending computational systems by offering their bodies, their senses, and their cognition. And specifically, bodies and minds that can be easily plugged in and later easily be discarded. So bodies and minds algorithmically managed and under the permanent pressure of constant availability, efficiency, and perpetual self-optimization.

Virtual Futures Salon: Fucking Machines

We are here to talk about fucking machines. In London, on a foggy evening, on a Tuesday, for yet another debate about fucking machines. Another curated discussion underlined by our own human insecurity about versions of us in silica. Fucking anthropomorphic fucking machines. Machines that fuck us. And let’s face it, machines are already fucking us, or so we seem to be told.

Virtual Futures Salon: Dawn of the New Everything, with Jaron Lanier

So here’s what happened. If you tell people you’re going to have this super-open, absolutely non-commercial, money-free thing, but it has to survive in this environment that’s based on money, where it has to make money, how does anybody square that circle? How does anybody do anything? And so companies like Google that came along, in my view were backed into a corner. There was exactly one business plan available to them, which was advertising.

Forbidden Research: Sexual Deviance: Can Technology Protect our Children?

One of the big things that we’re going to talk about here is paraphilia. We’re going to talk about sexual deviance. We’re going to talk about the problem of people whose sexual desires lead to attraction to children, lead to attraction towards violent sex, lead to sexual transgression in one fashion or another.