Humanity+ @ Parsons : NYC
May 14-15, 2011SPEAKER BIOS
Adam Zaretsky is a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner admixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. Politically, Zaretsky focuses on legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods: Fecund Assisted Reproductive Technology and Transgenic Edification Architecture. Currently he is co-creating Mutate or Die with Tony Allard: a live cut-up, biolistically impinging on life through the creative misuse of a Helios gene gun loaded with DNA from the William S. Burroughs Microbiome Project (WSBMP.) He is also participating in the Waag Society’s StudioLab, researching Solar Zebrafish – the research intends to produce chloroplast microinjected, genetically modified, photosynthetic plant-animal hybrids whom are then subjected to larval ethological personality studies. Zaretsky is the headmaster of VASTAL (The Vivoarts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd.) and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Art Practice, Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer (I/EAR), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Amy Li is a multidisciplinary creative director and designer, founder of iheartsuperkid, a technology company that focus on developing fun educational apps for kids. She is also on the board of directors of Humanity+. Amy has years of experience specializing in branding, creative marketing strategy, and user experience design for global brands such as Yahoo, AT&T, VW, and Sony etc. She is passionate about combining design, technology, and human factors to create state of the art products that impact our daily lives. Her work was showcased as “App of the Week ” in the New York Times, and also featured in Gizmodo. One of her true passions in life is to use her skills to help members of the scientific community become better communicators, one typography and one interface at a time. Amy earned her BFA with honors in graphic design at CSULB: the program has been ranked among the top eight of over three hundred programs in a national survey of professional designers. She later continued her education in Advanced Web and Interactive Design at UCLA.
Anders Sandberg, Ph.D., is a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University. Sandberg has a background in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University. His research at the Future of Humanity Institute centers on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as estimating the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. Topics of particular interest include enhancement of cognition, technology-enabled collective intelligence, neuroethics, epistemology of risk, global catastrophic risks and public policy. He was a co-founder of the Swedish Transhumanist Association and the think-tank Eudoxa, as well as a ubiquitous science debater and populariser.
Dr. Ben Goertzel [Humanity+ Chairman] is CEO of AI software companyNovamente LLC and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC; leader of the open-source OpenCog Artificial General Intelligence software project; Chief Technology Officer of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Director of Engineering of digital media firm Vzillion Inc.; Advisor to the Singularity University and Singularity Institute; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series.
His research work encompasses artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, data mining, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds and gaming and other areas, He has published a dozen scientific books, 100+ technical papers, and numerous journalistic articles, and the futurist treatise “A Cosmist Manifesto.” Before entering the software industry he served as a university faculty in several departments of mathematics, computer science and cognitive science, in the US, Australia and New Zealand. He has three children and too many pets, and in his spare time enjoys creating avant-garde fiction and music, and the outdoors.
Benjamin H. Bratton is a sociological, media, and design theorist. He is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and Director of the Center for Design & Geopolitics at the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of the premier applied research institutes in the application of supercomputing and very-large scale data visualization across the sciences, humanities and social sciences. His work sits at the intersections of contemporary social and political theory, computational media & infrastructure, and architectural & urban design problems and methodologies. Current research interests include: the philosophical problematics of the interfaciality, digital urbanism & media architecture, contemporary continental philosophy & aesthetic theory, institutional technology transfer protocols and platforms, design research management & methodologies, classical and contemporary sociological theory, history of the social sciences, organizational theory, and interaction and interface design. Bratton has lectured widely, and is the author of many articles, book chapters, in both academic and popular publications. Bratton has published widely, from AD:Architectural Design and Volume to BlackBook and Theory, Culture & Society, and has been an visiting lecturer and critic at Columbia, Pratt, Yale, Architectural Association of London, Penn, USC, UCLA, Art Center College of Design, Michigan, Brown, the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, among others. He was also co-chair of ambient:interface, the 54th (and final) International Aspen Design Conference. He is a frequent advisor and consultant to public and private organizations. He is the former Director of the Advanced Strategies Group at Yahoo! in Sunnyvale and Burbank, CA, and former Director of Information Architecture at Razorfish in Los Angeles and New York. As principal of The Culture Industry, a strategic research and planning consultancy he has developed projects with Motorola, Microsoft, Imaginary Forces, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, among others. He splits time between Los Angeles and La Jolla with his partner, Bruna Mori and their son, Lucien.
Curt Tigges is the Humanity+ Student Network Outreach Coordinator. He is a senior at NC State University studying Science, Technology, and Society. Currently his studies are focused on the philosophical and ethical aspects of AI and radical human enhancement as well as the connections between transhumanism and eastern philosophy. He is founder and president of the NC State branch of the H+Student Network. Previously he has studied sustainability in Costa Rica and will be studying Eastern philosophy in Japan next year.
Dirk Knemeyer is a Founder of Involution Studios, a software design studio whose clients include Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and over 150 start-ups. He is also the host of The Digital Life, an Internet radio show dedicated to exploring current trends and topics in digital technology and the design of experience.
Ed Keller is a designer, professor, writer, musician and multimedia artist. He is an Associate Dean [Distributed Learning and Technology] & Associate Professor at Parsons the New School for Design. Professionally, he is a founder with Carla Leitao of AUM Studio, an award winning architecture and new media firm that has produced residential projects, competitions, and new media installations in Europe and the US. They have participated in urban design and architecture competitions including MAK Vertical Garden; Turku Finland; UIA Celebration of Cities (National Award); House for Andrei Tarkovsky (first prize) and Museum for Nam June Paik. They presented their installation ‘Time Flow Control’ at the 2004 Beijing Biennale NY Hotspot vent. Since 1993 he has lectured on architecture, film and digital media at institutions including Harvard, Pratt, Princeton, Univ. Ramon Llull, Columbia Univ. GSAPP, Parsons, UPenn, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Iowa State, Ohio State, and Rice. Chronomorphology: Active Time in Architecture, a survey of his graduate design studios at the Columbia GSAP, was published in 2004 by CBA. His work and writing has appeared in ANY, AD, Arquine, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Architecture, Parpaings, Precis, Wired, Metropolis, Assemblage, Ottagono, and Progressive Architecture.
François Roche works simultaneously through the architectural practice R&Sie(n) and the research organization “new-territories”. R&Sie(n) is an architectural practice based on Paris. It was founded in 1989 by François Roche (1961, Paris) and Stéphanie Lavaux (1966, the French island Réunion). Their architectural work seeks to articulate the real and/or fictional, the geographic situations and narrative structures that can transform them. R&Sie(n) unfold their protocols through the re-staging of different kinds of contemporary relationships: aesthetical, machinist, computational, organics, biological and even artificial. They employ speculations and fictions as operative strategies to un-alienate operative modes and infiltrate “media culture” in order to subvert its conventions. They consider architectural identity as emanating from uncertainty principles defined through provisional processes and forms in which animism, vitalism and mechanism become vectors of dynamic mutations.
George Dvorsky Canada’s leading futurist, biopolitical activist and award winning blogger, George has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology. He is the Director of Operations for Commune Media, an advertising and marketing firm that specializes in marketing science. George has more than 10 years’ experience in media, arts and communications. With relationships forged across several continents, he has managed international accounts for leading brands. In addition to his work with Commune, George serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the co-founder and president of the Toronto Transhumanist Association. George has been interviewed by such publications as The Guardian, the BBC, Radio Free Europe, and Beliefnet. He made an appearance on the CBC’s The Hour and has been profiled in NOW and This Magazine.
Greg Maga is a concept car designer and engineer from Paris, France. He is passionate about everything automotive, anything that gives visual or emotional sensations, especially those “quite unusual” ones – fast, fun and beautiful racing cars. Greg has been working “hands on” on cars since he was 12 years old. After earning his master degree in mechanical engineering from the best school in France specializing in automotive engineering, Greg worked on various projects in automobile companies specializing in concept cars design and prototyping, both as an engineer and a project manager. After acquiring the unique skills and experience of designing and engineering an automobile from inception to completion, Greg set out his adventure to create his own innovation. He has since developed several projects from scratch: concept bike and the beautiful beast- DRAGON-R Formula.
Hal Hefner is an award winning illustrator whose experience includes science fiction and fantasy magazines as well as role playing games, movies, books, comic books, cartoons, record labels, video games, brochures and commercial illustration for advertising. Hefner is the creator of Heavy Metal’s, 1st webcomic, an epic science fiction story called Gates. As an artist and writer, his work reflects a passionate obsession with the future as well as the evolutionary path of humankind. In addition to his artistic accomplishments, Hal has utilized his creative background in the Los Angeles creative staffing industry, to increase ROI, through acquiring and managing multi-million dollar accounts for several companies. Prior to becoming a member of the Los Angeles staffing community with JBC connect, Creative Circle and Eleventh Hour, Hal was a Graphic Designer/Art Director with experience in advertising and marketing. As a creative professional, Hal was exposed to all levels of media including print, interactive and broadcast for corporate, entertainment, retail and more. He is extremely passionate about pushing the boundaries of communication through online avenues such as social media and online marketing to connect on a personal level with fans, clients and other networkers.
Heather Knight is the Assistant Director of Robotics for Humanity+, runs Marilyn Monrobot in NYC, and is a PhD Student in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her previous work includes: robotics and instrumentation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, interactive installations with Syyn Labs, electrical engineering at Aldebaran Robotics, and she is an alumnus from the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. Her creations have been featured at the Smithsonian-Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, TED, Pop!Tech, LACMA, SIGGRAPH and the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy. She has two degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a minor in Mechanical Engineering.
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Freud, and Buckminster Fuller” by Britain’s Channel4 TV, “the next Stephen Hawking” by Gear Magazine, and “The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium” by Buckminster Fuller’s archivist. Bloom is the author The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, and The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism.
Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has done 20 years of fieldwork in mass behavior, helping to build or sustain the careers of Michael Jackson, Prince, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others of the ilk. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He has worked with the United Negro College Fund, the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Bloom has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Knight-Ridder Financial News Service, the Village Voice, and Cosmopolitan Magazine.
James “J.” Hughes, Ph.D. is a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Director of Institutional Research and Planning. He is co-founder and executive director of the technoprogressive thinktank, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (ieet.org), and former executive director of the World Transhumanist Association (Humanity+). He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future , and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. Since 1999 he has produced a syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University.
Jenny Tillotson, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins, a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. She received her PhD in Textiles from the Royal College of Art and BA in Fashion from Central Saint Martins. Her research investigates the growing art and science of ‘Scentsory Design®’, which exists at the cross-over of nanotechnology and ‘miniaturisation’, the science of smell and how it affects the human brain and senses. The research seeks to break the tradition of scent delivery through the development of computerised scent-output systems worn on the body for wellbeing applications in ‘Emotional Fashion’.
Tillotson has exhibited internationally, published in science and design journals, won numerous awards including a ‘FiFi’ nominee Award for breakthrough progress in the fragrance industry. She has consulted for NIKE and Unilever, and prior to her academic work she was a fashion stylist. Her interest in ‘Emotional Fashion’ stems from working with people living with HIV. In 2000, she worked as a Sensory Designer for Charmed Technology, a spinout from the MIT Media Lab Wearable Computing Group. She is currently working with Philips on a fellowship to promote sleep and reduce stress called ‘Smell The Colour Of The Rainbow’. Her goal is to fuse printed electronics with scent to improve human cognition performance and create a new sustainable platform that not only revolutionises the fragrance industry, but reduces stigma attached to mental health (particularly bipolar affective disorder).
John Lobell, Professor of Architecture, Pratt Institute. Lobell has a widely ranging mind, addressing how new technologies change structures of consciousness, which in turn leads to cultural paradigm shifts affecting every corner of our lives.
Josh Call is a graduate student at Penn State University studying rhetoric of science and technology in the English department. He has interdisciplinary BA from the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on utopian and futuristic narratives, evolutionary rhetoric, and nanotechology discourse. He has authored and presented a number of papers on nanotechnology and new media rhetoric. He founded the Penn State University branch of the H+ Student Network and is the Assistant Coordinator for the Humanity+ Student Network.
Kristi Scott, IEET Program Director: Rights of the Person, is a doctoral student in Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her work centers on the way popular culture presents issues of identity, body modification, cosmetic surgery, and emerging technologies. She has been a freelance writer since 2003 writing for a variety of magazines over the years, most recently as a writer and copy-editor for h+ magazine. Kristi served as an intern, writer/blogger, volunteer, teaching assistant and coordinator for the IEET beginning in 2007, and also as a reviewer, copy-editor, and layout editor for the Journal of Evolution and Technology. She was elected to the Board of Directors of Humanity+ in 2010, and is a member of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and the Futurist Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, a reviewer for the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, an invited member of the Judging Panel for the 2008 Udo Schuklenk Bioethics Essay Competition in Nigeria, and a contributor and blogger for the Women’s Bioethics Project.
Max More An internationally recognized advocate of the effective and ethical use of technology for life extension and cryopreservation, Dr. More is president and CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Dr. More co-founded and until 2007 acted as Chairman of Extropy Institute, an educational non-profit organization that created the modern “transhumanist” movement, whose goals centrally include extending healthy human life span. More has a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from St. Anne’s College, Oxford University (1984-87). He was awarded a Dean’s Fellowship in Philosophy in 1987 by the University of Southern California. He studied and taught philosophy at USC with an emphasis on philosophy of mind, ethics, and personal identity, completing his Ph.D. in 1995, with a dissertation that examined issues including the nature of death, and what it is about each individual that continues despite great change over time.
Michael J. Masucci is a pioneering desktop digital video artist, and director/producer as well as an author, curator, educator and community activist. Co-founder and Artistic Director of EZTV, which the American Film Institute hailed as “one of the core pioneers and advocates of digital technology in the moving images arts”, Masucci and EZTV were recently honored by their inclusion in the upcoming Getty Center Museum and Research Institute ‘s “Pacific Standard Time”, a massive retrospective on the most significant of Los Angeles’ contemporary artists. Earlier this year, at UCLA, they were celebrated for their innovations in the fusion of art, performance, film and new media, in an event hosted by SIGGRAPH. EZTV, created in 1979, continues to be what Wired.com called “an avant-garde video production company and digital art center”. Projects for which EZTV has been a key collaborator have premiered at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Cannes Film Festival, the American Film Institute, as well as on BRAVO, the BBC, PBS and numerous festivals, conferences and art spaces. Masucci and EZTV have been profiled in media ranging from the LA Times to Millimeter Magazine, and from the Discovery Channel to the Financial News Network, as well as in several books on the history of the media arts. Long an advocate of the integration, of emerging technologies with the arts and human interaction in general, Masucci has worked with the California Lawyers for the Arts, and will soon be completing his doctorate in law, entirely online.
Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D., is a leader in ecological design and urbanism. He is a Co-Founder at Planetary ONE and Terreform ONE. He earned a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD Harvard University, M.Arch. Columbia University, and BPS SUNY at Buffalo with Honors. Mitchell is an Associate Professor at NYU and the European Graduate School (EGS) Switzerland. Previously he was the Frank Gehry Chair at University of Toronto and faculty at Columbia, Pratt, Syracuse, Washington, and Parsons. He was formerly an architect at Gehry Partners, and Pei Cobb Freed. He has been awarded the TED Senior Fellowship, Moshe Safdie Fellowship, and Martin Society for Sustainability Fellowship at MIT. He won the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability, History Channel Excellence Award for City of the Future, and Time Magazine Best Invention of 2007, Compacted Car w/ MIT Smart Cities. His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published. He was chosen by Wired magazine for “The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To”. Rolling Stone magazine honored Mitchell in “The 100 People Who Are Changing America”. In 2009 he was interviewed on the Colbert Report. Popular Science magazine has featured his work as a visionary for “The Future of the Environment” in 2010.
Moran Cerf, Ph.D., is neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology (‘Caltech’), UCLA department of neurosurgery and New York University. Dr. Cerf studies the neural basis of consciousness, and the ability to decode subjects’ thoughts in real time. His research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms of consciousness and free will using direct recording of single neurons from the brains of patients undergoing brain surgery. Dr. Cerf completed his Ph.D at Caltech in computational neuroscience, and holds an MA in Philosophy of Science and a B.Sc in Physics, both from the Tel-Aviv University. Prior to his career as a scientist, Dr. Cerf worked as a hacker – breaking into banks and financial institutes, an air pilot and an inventor. Dr. Cerf currently holds a faculty position at the American Film Institute, teaching screen-writing, and is currently the winner of the U.S Moth story-telling competition.
Natasha Vita-More, Ph.D. researcher, University of Plymouth, is Vice Chair of Humanity+ and a visiting lecturer at Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Applied Sciences, Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien, Centre Interuniversitaire des Arts Médiatiques, University of Quebec, and other learning intuitions such as Metanexus Institute, American Philosophical Association, Sala Parallo, Trondehim Festival, Pecci Museum, SESCE Brazil, and Lisbon Arte e Ciência Cordoaria, and Russia’s National Centre for Contemporary Arts. Vita-More is best known for “Primo Posthuman” future human prototype. Her artistic practice focuses on transformative human enhancement. Her writings have been published in numerous books, she has appeared in more than twenty-four televised documentaries, and featured in magazines including The New York Times, Wired, Village Voice, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, U.S. News & World Report, Net Business, and Teleopolis. Vita-More is the author of the Transhuman Statement (1983), producer and host of “Transcentury Update” (1987-1994), and the founder of Transhumanists Arts, Sciences & Culture (1991) and H+ Lab (2005). As the former President of Extropy Institute (2002-2005), she is currently on the Board of Directors for Humanity+, Fellow at Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Advisor of the Singularity University, Lifeboat Foundation, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at 21st Century Medicine.
Ollivier Dyens is Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He is the founder and webmaster of Metal and Flesh (1998-2003), as well as Continent X, websites dedicated to the study of cyberculture. Most recently, he completed a map of the posthuman using Google Earth (http://www.theinhumancondition.org). His most recent book is La Condition inhumaine, essai sur l’effoi technologique published in France by Flammarion. He is also the author of Metal and Flesh, The Evolution of Man, Technology Takes Over, published by MIT Press whose French version (VLB Éditeur) was awarded Best Essay by the Société des Écrivains Canadiens. He has lectured in Europe, the United States and Canada. He was guest speaker at the Parsons School of Design, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, at the Maryland Institute College of Art, on the Empyre list, at the Centre Européen de Technoculture, at Ars Electronia, at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, etc. His digital artwork has been exhibited in Brazil, Canada, France, Venezuela, Germany, Argentina and the United States.
Patrick Millard is an artist, curator, and educator that works with ideas in an overlapping artistic and scientific arena. His work speaks directly to a changing environment and a need for symbiotic relationship between ecology and technology. Working in photography, sound, and new media, Millard has developed several portfolios dealing with embodiment, cryonics, virtual and augmented reality, ecotechnics, nanotechnology, and robotics. Millard received his MFA in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design and currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Photography at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA.
Scott Draves is a visual and software artist living in New York City. Draves is best known as the creator of the Electric Sheep, a continually evolving abstract animation with over 450,000 participants.
Draves created the original Flame algorithm in 1991, the Bomb visual-musical instrument in 1995, and the Electric Sheep in 1999. Draves’ software artworks are released as open source and have been used for two decades by many other artists and designers in their own work. Most recently, Draves created Generation 243, a commissioned piece for the Gates Center for Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Other works include Clade 1, a rare true high-definition video artwork that runs a 26-minute loop. Dreams in High Fidelity, a moving painting that runs infinitely, is installed in the lobby of Google’s headquarters, and has been acquired by corporate and residential collections nationally. Draves’ award-winning work is permanently hosted on MoMA.org, and has appeared in Wired and Discover magazines, as an official skin for Google Chrome, as the graphic identity for Siggraph 2008, the Prix Ars Electronica 1993, the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and on the main dance-floor at the Sonar festival in Barcelona. PhD from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University for a thesis on metaprogramming for media processing.
Perry Hall (United States) is an artist and musician. His paintings, video works, and installations have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in the United States and Asia, with work as a painter and digital artist included in Academy Award winning film sequences (What Dreams May Come). He was recently shortlisted for a $2 million art commission by the Miami-Dade Art In Public Places. Hall’s ongoing project explores the relationship between natural systems, painting and technology. His paintings incorporate time as well as physical matter’s inherent intelligence and capacity to self-organize. Hall’s lifelong experiences with synesthesia are a major influence in his artwork and music. Solo and group shows at Artist Space in New York, The Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewiitt (National Design Museum) in New York, Pekin Fine Arts in Beijing, China, the Tokyo Art Fair in Tokyo, Japan, The Williiams College Museum of Art in Williamstwon, Massachusetts, the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) and the Diana Lowenstein Gallery in Miami, Florida.
Peter Watts Peter Watts is generally a lot more optimistic than you might expect, considering. He has spent much of his adult life trying to decide whether to be a writer or a scientist, ending up as a marginal hybrid of both. He’s won a handful of awards in fields as diverse as marine mammal science, video documentary, and science fiction. These accolades have not gone to his head since they never involved a lot of cash. His first novel, Starfish, netted a “Notable Book of the Year” nod from the New York Times, and honorable mention for John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Watts’ latest book, Blindsight (Tor 2006) might be best described as a literary first-contact novel exploring the nature and evolutionary significance of consciousness, with space vampires. As of this writing Blindsight is in its fourth hardcover printing, is being translated into several languages (including— at long last— German and Russian), and made the final ballot for the Hugo, John W. Campbell, Sunburst, Locus, and Aurora awards.
Stephen Valentine For more than two decades, architect Stephen Valentine has contributed to the design of major commercial and institutional projects worldwide. He was concept architect for a proposed new Long Island Railroad Station in New York City, located near the historic Grand Central Terminal. At I. M. Pei and Partners, he served as a senior architect for partner James Ingo Freed’s highly acclaimed United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and New York’s Jacob Javits Convention and Exhibition Center, which has the world’s largest space-frame. He was a senior architect for the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, the landmark structure that was the site for the transfer of governmental authority from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. During his tenure as president and design director for the New York office of the Japanese firm Mirai International, Valentine led the design team for Superparadise, a multi-billion-dollar environmental science exposition park and habitat located outside Tokyo. He also was a member of a select team of international architects commissioned to design a master plan for the future development of the sacred city of Hangzhou, China, with a population of three million. His latest work is Timeship, a scientific think tank and the world’s center for the cryopreservation of the DNA of endangered species, human DNA, organs for transplant, and thousands of human patients traveling to the future.
Ted Byfield Assistant Professor, School of Art, Media, and Technology, Parsons the New School for Design. Worked for a decade as a nonfiction editor for academic and public-interest publishers including Cambridge, the Dia Center, the New Press, and Zone Books. Co-moderator of Nettime since 1998. Writings have appeared in First Monday, Frieze, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Mute, inter alia. Awards and honors include Rotterdam Design Prize (1997, contributor), Design Trust for Public Space Journalism Fellowship (2002), Open Society Institute research grant (2003), SSRC’s Information Technology and International Cooperation workgroup (2003-2004), and Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School (2008-2010).
Tom McCabe is a mathematics student at Yale University and Executive Director of Humanity+, the world’s leading nonprofit for the ethical use of technology to extend human capabilities. He is the IT and website manager for the Singularity Summit, and the author of the articles “The Top 5 Technology Panics of 2009” (published in H+ Magazine and featured on Slashdot) and “Failure and Success in AGI Projects” (published at the 2009 Conference on Artificial General Intelligence). He is also a Research Consultant for KurzweilAI.net and Technical Moderator for the KurzweilAI.net Forums.
Vivian Rosenthal Since co-founding digital media and entertainment studio Tronic with Jesse Seppi in 2001, Vivian Rosenthal has been widely praised for her groundbreaking work with Fortune 500 clients including Nike, Microsoft, HP, Target and GE. She has been called a “visual futurist” for her uncanny ability to tap into our collective future and create new realities of form and experience. Eyeing a unique opportunity to establish a new media buy in the virtual space, Vivian founded GoldRun in 2010, a mobile platform that uses augmented reality and GPS to capitalize on shifts in the multi-billion dollar advertising industry that are seeing mobile media rise to prominence. She has been named one of Creativity Magazine’s top 50 global creatives of 2010 and has spoken at numerous conferences on the intersection of advertising and technology, including the CaT conference by Ad Age, The London Click Conference, OFFF and Creative Review London. She has been selected as a jury member for the Andy Awards and One Show Interactive Awards. Her work has appeared in Wired, Fast Company, CNET, NY Times, Newsweek, Apple.com and the Today Show. Vivian holds a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University.
