Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Blog and text archive about media theory, science fiction theory, future design, social choreography, Computer Science 2.0, new media art, robots and androids, Star Trek, The Prisoner, Jean Baudrillard, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Marshall McLuhan

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Data and Baudrillard, by Franco La Polla

June 25th, 2010 in Category: Android Data, Androids & Artificial Life, Jean Baudrillard, Star Trek, The Next Generation

This is a translation of one chapter of Franco La Polla’s book "Star Trek: Foto di Gruppo con Astronave." Almost all of the books on Star Trek were written in a relatively thoughtless manner, put together in haste to make money. In contrast to them, La Polla’s books on Star Trek are rare precious gems of high intelligence.
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Dance and Digital/Virtual Technologies, by Jaana Parviainen

June 22nd, 2010 in Category: Dance Theory, Real/Virtual Reality, The Body

Dwelling in the virtual sonic environment: phenomenological analysis of dancers’ learning processes in working with the EGM (Embodied Generative Music) interface.
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Bayerischer Rundfunk programme on Alan N. Shapiro

June 20th, 2010 in Category: Android Data, Androids & Artificial Life, Baseball, Car of the Future, Casino Gambling, Dance Theory, Hans-Peter Dürr, Humanities Informatics, Rethinking Science, Star Trek

On June 13, 2010, Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast a 38-minute programme (mostly in German) about the ideas and projects of Alan N. Shapiro. The show was produced by Florian Fricke. It includes a segment on the social choreography ideas and practice of Alan's close friend Steve Valk.
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Martin Heidegger’s Prophecy: Art and Technology

June 18th, 2010 in Category: Martin Heidegger, The Illusion Beyond Art

In lectures of the late 1930s - "The Age of the World Picture" and "The Origin of the Work of Art" - Heidegger delineated the "essence of modernity", pointing the way to an original exit from modernity onto a "generalized reflection on everything" for which modernity paved the way and which was its secret destiny.
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From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti – Teleporting an Unknown State, by Eduardo Kac

June 6th, 2010 in Category: Arts & Genomics, Rethinking Science, The Technological Herbarium

"Teleporting an Unknown State" is defined by Eduardo Kac as a biotelematic interactive installation in which the natural biological process at the basis of the artwork is activated by a telecommunications system managed by the computer.