The Robots and Avatars Collaborative Futures panel will take place at the Kinetica Art Fair on Saturday 6th February at 11am. It will look at working processes and collaborations between the physical and virtual in future work environments, imagining teams that may include the live, the virtual, robots and avatars. Examining new creation techniques of self representation, developing in the forms of robots and avatars, the debate will explore the effect of these evolutions on creative outputs and onwards working modes.

Panel members include Prof. Noel Sharkey (University of Sheffield), Ron Edwards (Ambient Performance), Ghislaine Boddington (body>data>space), Peter McOwan (Queen Mary, University of London), Anna Hill (Space Synapse) and Michael Takeo Magruder (King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London).

Come and visit the stand for Robots and Avatars and learn more about the programme, body>data>space and NESTA.

Kinetica Art Fair takes place at P3, Marylebone, London from 4-7th February 2010. It is a unique opportunity to view and purchase artworks from leading contemporary arts organisations and artists specialising in kinetic, electronic, robotic, light, sound, time-based and interdisciplinary new media art.

For further info go to kinetica-artfair.com

Book tickets

We have just launched a new programme of work Robots and Avatars, a series of events and educational activities taking place across 2010 and onwards in the UK and internationally. It is designed to explore how young people will work and play with new representational forms of virtual and physical life in 10-15 years time.

A first Forum took place in November 2009 at NESTA and brought together an excellent group of UK and international participants from the worlds of education, arts, youth and social services, gaming and robotics. This intensive and inter-generational gathering was designed to explore the implications of technology trends for the young people of today with keynote speeches from Pear Urishima (Apple Inc, California, USA), Dooeun Choi (Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea) and Prof. Noel Sharkey (University of Sheffield). You can see the photos, videos, reports and breakout groups here robotsandavatars.net/forum

Please also visit the Robots and Avatars research links section and suggest anymore to us that you know!

Please also click here to view the 10 min video of highlights from the day.

Robots and Avatars will include onwards Forums, a range of educational events, an exhibition, a Book/DVD, and the website will continue to expand as a shared research resource. The programme will investigate new relationships and skills required by the future workforce, and what forthcoming generations can expect from their jobs, careers and recreation time.

Robots and Avatars is a programme of work conceived and produced by body>data>space with partners NESTA, rehearsal.org / Ignite!, King’s College Visualisation Lab (King’s College London), Hi8us, ResCen (Middlesex University), Soda, b.TWEEN festival, Kinura, Kinetica and RAN (Digital Art Network).

If you would like to co-operate, join in or make a link please email hello@robotsandavatars.net

[ www.robotsandavatars.net ]
[ more project info ]

body>data>space have freshened up our website for 2010. We will be adding much more in the next few months so please do check back here for updates.

Please do send through any comments, ideas or corrections- we are happy to receive them! Please also do have a look through the body>data>space projects, we are open to co-operations, partners and links.