Humanity+

Following the publication of the special issue on Transhumanism?, the online journal Re-public calls for submission of work for an online exhibition website. The artworks may be any media so long as they can be displayed on web.

The theme is “Transhumanism” in the widest sense. Participants, amateurs and professionals, are invited to illustrate, comment, think and make people think about this theme with total liberty.

Proposed artworks would ideally be original, created for this exhibition, but it’s possible to propose old ones.

The texts which accompany the artworks must be either in English, in Greek, or in French.

Artworks must be sent via the transhumanism.gr site before the end of November 2009.

An international selection committee including artists, art professionals, and H+ thinkers will choose the artworks and will propose the structure of their online presentation.

This exhibition might become an ongoing website, which would become an international H+ art gallery.

Everyone is welcome!

Re-Imagining the Human Body Through Literature

7-9pm, Sept 10, 2009

Old Operating Theatre Museum, SEI, London UK

Guests:
Cory Doctorow
Gwyneth Jones
Ian Watson
Matthew De Abaitua

It’s been away for a few months, but our unique literary event, The Butcher’s Shop, is back for a one-off sci-fi special on September 10, entitled Future Human. The night will focus on the science and literature of transhumanism, the process of upgrading the human body with technology; we’ll be exploring the utopian possibilities and nightmarish tensions that writers have found in transhumanism over the years.

One half of the night will be given over to a discussion of transhumanism with four special guests – Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing blog hero and author of Little Brother), Gwyneth Jones (author of the Arthur C.Clarke Award winning Bold As Love), Ian Watson (co-author of the screenplay for A.I., and a former Stanley Kubrick collaborator) and Matthew de Abaitua (author of The Red Men).

The other half of the night will be spent, as usual, chopping and dissecting stories submitted by guests in an intensive process of live editing by the BAD IDEA team – if you’d like to submit stories of 350 words or less for inclusion, written on the transhumanist theme, then send them to info@badidea.co.uk or via our Facebook page, before September 4. The two best stories will be edited live on the night, and the best five will receive a limited edition print of the Future Human poster pictured above, designed by Bryony Lloyd.

It’s in the same place we’ve always been, the Old Operating Theatre Museum near London Bridge. If you haven’t been before, this is a beautifully preserved Victorian operating theatre, with all the disturbingly wrong-headed medical equipment, pungent herbs, and scary mannequins that entails. And as usual, Hendrick’s Gin are going to be providing delicious cucumber-laced complimentary cocktails all night.

More details: It runs from 7-9pm of Thursday September 10, the admission price is £12, and tickets are available here. Tickets will also be available from the venue on the night, but places are limited, so it’s best to buy them beforehand. Tickets will be held at the Old Operating Theatre and not mailed out before the event. The address for the Old Operating Theatre Museum is 9a St. Thomas’s St., London SE1 9RY – click here for a map.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

2009 WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL ENGAGES THE FUTURE HEAD-ON!

(Woodstock, NY USA) August 26, 2009: The 10TH Anniversary Woodstock Film Festival boldly goes where it has never gone before with an unprecedented focus on ethics and the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence and transhumanism.

With two futuristic narrative premieres and intellectually star-studded panels exploring radical new technologies, this years “fiercely independent” festival offers rare insight into the not-so-futuristic world of artificial intelligence, technohumanity, and other bio-technologies, which could become the norm within the next fifty years.

“We are thrilled to spotlight the future explorations of men and machine in this year’s festival,” stated Meira Blaustein, co-founder and executive director of the Woodstock Film Festival. “In a year where we celebrate the mark of our 10th anniversary and we all stand at the eve of a new decade, setting an eye into our future is not only our privilege, but a necessity.”

2B, directed by Richard Kroehling, is a World Premiere future narrative film portraying a decaying world on the cusp of great transformation. Based upon real science and evolving technologies, 2B’s script brings to life the ‘technohuman’ conundrum. Designed to confront the most controversial topic of the 21st century, 2B explores moral and religious questions raised by the biotech revolution, forcing its audience to deeply question their definitions of life itself.

Partnered with the Syfy Channel, WFF will also present the feature length pilot of Syfy’s upcoming, hotly anticipated new series Caprica. The film is presented in connection with a Syfy Screenwriting Panel, pertaining to future narrative writing and other different genres of screenwriting as well.

From the mind of Battlestar Executive Producer, Ronald Moore comes Caprica. Humanity’s storyline takes completely new twists in Caprica as two rival family patriarchs, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) compete and thrive in the vibrant realm of the twelve Colonies, a society recognizably close to our own. This original, stand-alone series will feature the passion, intrigue, political backbiting, and family conflict alive and well in an omnipotent society that is, even at the height of its blind power and glory, unknowingly on the brink of its fall.

Designed to accompany the issues raised by 2B and Caprica, the Woodstock Film Festival engages the future head-on with the presentation of a ground-breaking panel, Redesigning Humanity – The New Frontier: If artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and other technologies will, within the next 50 years, allow human beings to transcend the limitations of the body, how will our world fundamentally change under those conditions?

Moderated by Dr. James J. Hughes, Executive Director of the Institute for Emerging Ethics and Technologies and bioethicist at Trinity College, this revolutionary panel features futurist Raymond Kurzweil, the author of four best selling novels, and an inventor responsible for many breakthroughs in biotechnological fields; Dr. Martine Rothblatt, lawyer, author and entrepreneur, responsible for several satellite technology companies, along with Terasem Media and Films, which produces independent narrative and documentary films that deal with biotechnologies; and author Wendell Wallach, regarded as one of forefront thinkers in the field of Machine Ethics who, after co-authoring Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, is working on a new book examining what humans might become through emerging technologies.

The full 10th Anniversary Woodstock Film Festival line-up of films, panels and events, will be announced in early September.

This feature length documentary will include interviews with Humanity+’s James Hughes, Jonas Lamis, Ben Goertzel, and Nick Bostrom, as well as dozens of others from both inside and outside the S^ and H+ community. Coming December 2009.

“The Singularity – Will we survive our technology?” is a comprehensive documentary showcasing the promises and perils of future technologies such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Serious thinkers in the science community are wowed by the techno-utopia promises of transcending our biology, merging with our machines, and creating greater than human intelligence.

This film illustrates how these technologies may be achieved within the next two decades then questions what these technologies could mean to humanity. Not only should we be concerned with the unintended consequences of these powerful technologies, we should pause to think about what happens if these technologies actually pan out as anticipated.

Parts 1 and 2 of the IEET’s Natasha Vita-More’s talk at April 11 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association.