ANNOUNCEMENT Science Fiction, Science Faction An exploration of the visions behind the contemporary digital world. Organized by the Waag Society, Internet provider XS4ALL and the Cyberspace Salvations Research Team (University of Leiden, Erasmus University Rotterdam): In the mid-1980s, due to the rapid spread of personal and networked computing and the development of computer graphics, digital technologies seemed to change the world profoundly. Only nobody knew how. Computer designers, entrepreneurs and opinion makers put tremendous effort in envisioning and creating the kinds of futures they thought these technologies could and should bring. In this quest, many of them were inspired by science fiction. The mutual influence between science fiction and the production of techno-science is as old as science itself. From Jules Vernes From the Earth to the Moon (1865) to William Gibsons Neuromancer (1984), science fiction has provided science with possibilities for the future, and has suggested blueprints both utopian and dystopian - for an as yet nonexistent world. In 1984 William Gibson introduced the concept of cyberspace- an otherworldly space that was enclosed in a network of computers. His work, and that of other cyberpunk writers like Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker, greatly inspired a growing network of internet pioneers and game designers. The science fiction fantasies provided them with images of a future that was just around the corner and which they could help to build. New technologies, in turn, fed the imaginations of science fiction writers. This cross-fertilization between science fiction and science faction resulted, among others, in new understandings of user-computer interaction and in the production of online worlds such World of Warcraft and Second Life. During three evenings prominent Virtual World designers, cyberpunk writers and an editor of a cyberculture magazine will engage in a discussion about the ways in which they mutually inspired each other. They will be joined by social scientists, journalists and the audience in an exploration of the fertilization between science fiction fantasies and science factional engineering of new technologies. The speakers will look back at how new technologies and the visions, fantasies and ideologies that accompanied them helped shape the digital world we inhabit today. Insight in the process of fertilization between science fiction and science faction might not only shed light on the roots of our digital present, but also assist those who are involved in the process of finding new visions for a social and technological reality to come. Speaker schedule: March 21: Bruce Sterling (science fiction writer, design visionairy) & Peter Pels (anthropology, Leiden University) Moderator: Sally Wyatt (Virtual Knowledge Studio, president of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) April 11: Rudy Rucker (science fiction writer, mathematics professor) RU Sirius (founder cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000) Moderator: Giselinde Kuipers (sociology, University of Amsterdam) May 2: Brenda Laurel (virtual worlds and game designer) Bruce Damer and Galen Brandt (virtual worlds developers and performers) Moderator: Christian van t Hof (Rathenau Institute) Location: Pakhuis de Zwijger, Piet Heinkade 179, Amsterdam Start: 19.45 uur Entrance: Free Reserve through: symposium@cyberspacesalvations.nl Bios: Bruce Sterling (1954) is a science fiction writer and one of the founders of the so-called cyberpunk genre. His activities are not restricted to science fiction: in 2003 he was appointed as a professor at the European Graduate School where he lectures on media and design. In 2005 he became a visionary in residence at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His most recent (non science fiction) book is Shaping Things (2005). Peter Pels (1958) is a professor in cultural anthropology at Leiden University and project leader of the Cyberspace Salvations research group. Besides his specialization in sub-Saharan Africa, he is interested in the anthropology of modernity, religion, technology and the convergence of both in, for instance, science fiction novels. Among others, he has published a book Magic and Modernity together with Birgit Meyer (ed., Stanford 2003). Rudy Rucker (1946) is both a computer scientist and a science fiction writer and, like Sterling, one of the founders of cyberpunk. Rucker lectures at San José University since 1986, worked between 1988 and 1992 at Autodesk a company specialized in Interface Technology and is mostly known for his Wetware Tetralogy: Software (1982), Wetware (1988), Freeware (1997) and Realware (2000). RU Sirius (born as Ken Goffman) is an American writer and co-founded Mondo 2000 in 1989 one of the most influential magazines in the American cyberculture of the 1990s. MONDO featured contributions of Virtual Reality pioneers (like Jaron Lanier), science fiction writers (like William Gibson and Rudy Rucker) and New Age gurus (such as Timothy Leary). Goffmans most recent book is Counterculture through the Ages (2004). Brenda Laurel works as a senior director for Sun Microsystems Labs in Menlo Park, California and teaches at the Art Center of Design in Pasadena, California. She became a designer for Atari and Activision in the 1980s, worked in the field of Virtual Reality in the 1990s and (co)founded Purple Moon a company specialized in computer games for girls. Laurel authored many books on the vision and imagination behind technology, like Computers as Theatre (1991) and Utopian Entrepreneur (2001). Bruce Damer is an engineer of virtual worlds and started Contact Consortium in the 1990s the first organization that developed avatars as digital representations of people in cyberspace. He wrote the non-fiction book Avatars (1997) and is the director of Digital Space, a 3D modeling and visualization technology company that works for NASA. Damer is an active member of CONTACT an organization of technicians, academics and science fiction writers who explore scenarios, based on contemporary, technological innovations and developments, about possible future societies. Galen Brandt is a musician and performer who has used virtual reality systems in her performances and has collaborated with artificial reality pioneer Myron Krueger in the creation of interactive worlds. Galen has written and lectured as well about Virtual Healing: the use of virtual reality for healing real world problems. For more info: www.cyberspacesalvations.nl or info@cyberspacesalvations.nl www.xs4all.nl www.waag.org -- Drs. Ineke Noomen (PhD Student) Department of Sociology Faculty of Social Sciences Erasmus University P.O. Box 1738 3000 DR Rotterdam The Netherlands Email: noomen@fsw.eur.nl --------------------------------Disclaimer-------------------------------- De informatie verzonden in dit e-mail bericht inclusief de bijlage(n) is vertrouwelijk en is uitsluitend bestemd voor de geadresseerde van dit bericht. Lees verder: http://www.eur.nl/email-disclaimer The information in this e-mail message is confidential and may be legally privileged. 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