Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Alan N. Shapiro

“I am very excited and humbled by the depth of your work.”
– Joy Tang, founder of oneVillage Foundation

Alan N. Shapiro is an interdisciplinary thinker who studied science-technology at MIT and philosophy-history-literature at Cornell University. He is the author of “Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance”  (Berlin: AVINUS Verlag, 2004), a leading work in science fiction studies and on the conception of futuristic technoscience. He is the editor and translator of  ”The Technological Herbarium” by Gianna Maria Gatti (Berlin: AVINUS Verlag, 2010), a major study of art and technology. His book “Software of the Future: The Model Precedes the Real” will be published in German in 2013. He is a practicing software developer. Alan has worked as a consultant to many large companies in several European countries. He is working on projects like “Computer Science 2.0,” “The Car of the Future,” “The Library and Museum of the Future,” and robotics. At his website “Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist” (www.alan-shapiro.com), he has already published more than 250 articles (by himself and others). He is recognised as one of the leading experts on the philosophy and cultural theory of Jean Baudrillard. He is currently starting a book project called “The Prisoner: Confinement and Freedom in the Global Village,” together with Nolan Bazinet and Nicole Maggio.

Alan Neil Shapiro (born April 23, 1956 in Brooklyn, New York) is a software developer, computer scientist, and author and translator in the field of contemporary cultural phenomena.

Alan’s most important early experience was the 4 years that he spent as a pupil at the Sands Point Academy on the North Shore of Nassau County, near the cliffs and beaches of Long Island Sound. The Sands Point school for gifted children, founded by Marie L. Fetsch with Benjamin Fine as headmaster, was a first taste of utopia and harmony.

As an undergraduate, he studied mathematics/science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and government, history, literature at Cornell University. He also has an M.A./A.B.D. in sociology from New York University.

Originally from New York City, Shapiro has worked in several European countries. Since 1991 he has been living in Germany. His academic career includes work as a lecturer at New York University, and lectures at the University of Erlangen, the University of Limerick, Ireland, the University of Porto, Portugal, the Humboldt University of Berlin (Institute for Media Studies), the University of Oldenburg (American Studies Dept.), the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karslruhe, the Arts & Genomics Centre of the University of Leiden, Holland, the Interface Culture Lab at the Art University in Linz, Austria, and NABA Design University in Milan, Italy.

In 2010-2011, he lectured at the Transmediale Festival for Art and Digital Culture, Berlin; Kunst im Tunnel Art Museum, Düsseldorf; Ars Electronica, Linz; Plektrum Festival, Tallinn; and ISEA2011, Istanbul. He spoke at the Critical Point of View Wikipedia conferences in Amsterdam and Leipzig. He was the keynote speaker at the conference on “Knowledge of the Future” at the University of Vienna.

In 2012-2013, he was a keynote speaker at BOBCATSSS in Amsterdam, lectured at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, lectured twice at the Sandberg Art and Design Academy in Amsterdam, lectured at the University for Applied Arts in Vienna, at the Estonia Art Academy in Tallinn, at the Art and Design University in Offenbach, at the Bath Spa University School of Art and Design, Bath, UK, at Transmediale in Berlin, and at the University for Applied Science, Potsdam. He was a keynote speaker at the i-Society 2012 IEEE Conference on the Information Society, London, at the Share Art Festival in Turin, Italy, at the Conference on Hybrid Art and Science in Tallinn, and at the ISI International Symposium of Information Science in Potsdam.

Recently Alan has been a Visiting Professor at the NABA Design University in Milan, teaching a seminar on simulation in philosophy, film, art, and software. He is an adjunct professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, where he has taught seminars on television and on “Key Thinkers in Media and Technology.” He is an adjunct professor at the Art and Design University in Offenbach, where he teaches an ongoing seminar in History of Visual Communication. He is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Time-Based Media, University of the Arts, Berlin, where he teaches an ongoing seminar on software of the future.

More on Alan N. Shapiro at Wikipedia…