Schedule

Events | Forum : Schedule | Presenter Biographies | Participant Pack | Team

10.15 – Welcome and Introductions – Conference Room

Benedict Arora (NESTA) and Ghislaine Boddington (body>data>space)

10.40 – Robots and Avatars – virtual/physical bodies

A conceptual and contextual introduction by Ghislaine Boddington.

How will we represent ourselves and deal with others in virtual and physical space in 10 years time? What will this do to shift our perception of identity and our definition of ourselves? What are the future potentials for relationships, collaborations and knowledge sharing across virtual and physical boundaries? How can we utilise connectivity to evolve our tele-intuition, bypass distance and encourage trust within communities, often when we have not met in reality at all? Ghislaine will introduce some of the themes and questions of the Forum, give some visual examples of future potential developments and, in doing so, contextualise the upcoming speakers inputs.

11.00 – Keynote 1

By Pear Urishima, Apple Inc, California, USA

Pear Urushima is a marketing guru working for Apple, Inc. in California. She has thrived in high-technology for more than 15 years, designing and implementing marketing programmes for a diversity of F1000 companies. Currently, she specialises in marketing iPhone in the science and medical industries. Today she will examine how we will work in the future and what skills will be require to do this. She will input her own visions and share examples from the USA with us.

11.30 – Coffee Break – NESTA foyer

11.45 – Panel Discussion

With Sarah Platt (Kinura), Emmanuel Cuisinier and Celine Nannini (Centre Des Arts, Paris, France), Rick Hall (Ignite! / rehearsal.org.uk), Charlotte Moore (Sidekick Studios) and Derek Richards (Hi8us South)

Chosen for their expertise and hands-on experience with innovative and topical projects, each panel member will give a short input relating to subjects ranging from :-

• Multi-identity and self representation
• Virtual worlds / gaming / social media
• Future work skills and creation processes
• Citizenship and democracy
• Exhibition, installation and performance
• Connectivity and communication tools                                                    within the context of the future work environment.

Following these, further commentary will be requested from Forum participants, as well as questions and additions.

13.15 – Lunch – NESTA foyer

13.45 – Presentations and Demonstrations

Please move around between these three sessions

• Hi8us – 2 sessions x 20 minutes – 13.45 and 14.10                              Peer Mentors, Youth Editors and Virtual Cast from the L8R project show their work and talk about virtual personification in the interactive drama and social media PSHE learning resource.
• Everyday Avatars and Their Persistent Worlds –
  Michael Takeo Magruder (Artist and Researcher, King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London / body>data>space Associate) gives us a chance to explore avatars and virtual worlds, while demonstrating the Forums debate on the redefinition of relationships between the physical and the virtual. Visit and join in.
• Playing and Experimenting with Robotic Kits –
  Stanza, independent artist and technologist shares his love of robots and sensor systems in a hands-on session for all to move through.

14.30 – Keynote 2 – via live VOIP / Skype link

by Doouen Choi, Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea

Dooeun Choi is creative director of Art Center Nabi, which opened in 2000 as the first media art centre in Seoul, Korea. She is interested in new ways of mediated communication between humans, machine, and other lives. She will present an input about the state of the art use of robots and avatars for education / workplace in Korea as well as share her own future visions

15.15 – Break Out Groups

Within the themes of Robots, Avatars and future work space:

• Skills Sets and Resources
• Attitudes and Psychologies
• Imaginations and Reflections
• Realities and Representations
• Knowledge Economy and Exchange
• Collaborations and Networks
• Connectivity Processes

Plus Open Sessions (for decision on the day)

16.30 – Summaries from Break Out Groups and comments from the floor

17.30 – Co-summation and final comments

With Benedict Arora (NESTA), Ghislaine Boddington (body>data>space) and Dan McQuillan (Make your Mark Campaign / Social Innovation Camp)

Drinks – NESTA foyer

With a special word from Noel Sharkey PhD DSc FIET FBCS FRSA FRIN
Professor of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence and Professor of Public Engagement, University of Sheffield

All day in NESTA foyer

Two examples of the multiple uses of the avatar Orla Ray

Orla Ray – interactive installation by Ivor Diosi– independent new media artist / virtual worlds / body>data>space Associate

DVD- DARE WE DO IT REALTIME? and the performance avatar Orla Ray were created in 2008 as part of Post Me_New ID, a co-production between body>data>space (London, UK), CIANT (Prague, Czech Republic), TMA Hellerau (Dresden, Germany) and Kibla (Maribor, Slovenia) supported by the European Union within the Culture 2007 Programme. The DVD here shows the video and images from the interauthored group processes and the final performances at the Kinetica Art Fair in February 2009. The work involved 11 European artists specialising in performance, video, sound, virtual world and interaction plus Orla Ray, the avatar in performance mode. www.postme-newid.net

“In a topical world, the performers travel through personal and public space, working with the individual and the community. In close and distant environments, they simultaneously operate locally and globally. Their habitat is an intricate virtual/physical place of body/mind orientation. Their live bodies can mimic and perform chosen identities – morphing between avatar, cyborg, humanoid, robot, using the electronic, the bionic, the digitronic. Hyper-existence is all around them. In the interconnected, multi-nodal space of real and virtual, they need to be sharply connected and speedily responsive to “the others” – tele-intuition lessons are learnt on the move.”

Live Blogging tool ScribbleLive is available in the NESTA foyer on two kiosks and on screen – please do feel free to add in your thoughts as the day progresses. The results will be feed out onto the Robot and Avatars website for people who could not attend. They will also be used into the final documentation of the day (live writing, video and photography) to be uploaded onto the site over the next few weeks. Also see the twitter hash on the last page of this pack.

Additionally a selection of research images gathered for Robots and Avatars from web searches will be on show for educational sharing. The Research Links page of the Robot and Avatar site reflects these images as well as other multiple links we have used in researching this project.