The Symposium for the Future

Recently my HASTAC mentor professor Dr. Gardner Campbell let me know about a conference the New Media Consortium (NMC) was holding, called "The Symposium for the Future."  Dr. Campbell was a keynote speaker for the conference.  The talks were focused on futurism and what to expect as society and technologies continue to develop, in many different fields.

The conference, however, was not held in one place, in person; it was held online via a private server running Second Life.

I was only able to sit in on the last few sessions due to scheduling, but even from this I got to see a wide variety of presentation styles.  The first talk I attended, a presentation by Jim Groom, Tom Woodward, and Brian Lamb, was about the future of healthcare.  As they promised in the introduction, a blue dragon introducing the speakers was not the strangest part of it.  The session itself was modeled after Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM, I confess I did get most of the references thanks to a friend who had familiarized me with the show some years ago.  In the talk, a man from the future called in and answered questions about the future of healthcare.  The presentation included a small set in the center of the conference building, which was itself virtual.  Most users had microphones at their disposal; those who did not could participate via the chat system.

The next talk, by Dr. Cynthia Calogne, found the attendees sitting in the center of the building on colorful mushroom seats for a talk on innovation in emerging media.  The presentation itself was lead by Dr. Calogne speaking, as well as an accompanying powerpoint presentation shown on a screen within the Second Life world of the conference.  The closing session also used powerpoint slides, and brought in a Korean high school student to talk about her work as it connected to virtual museum technology.

The talks in themselves were thought provoking, but I had little experience with Second Life to begin with and was also interested by the choice to hold the conference in Second Life.  As Alan Levine explained to me during a break between sessions, the use of Second Life rather than a simple video conferencing or chat system offers participants "more presence," and also allows for simulations and visual demonstrations -- it feels more real, like a live conference.  There is more preparation involved, and there are a few setbacks (I had to move a couple times when people sat infront of me, because their heads got in the way, among other technical issues) but the extra dimension added by use of Second Life was clear.  What better way to hold a conference about futurism than in an online, virtual environment?

At the same time, I can't help but think that in most circles that hold conferences, such an idea would be dismissed as silliness right now - holding a conference in an online game.  While Second Life is not really a video game I do wonder if it might be difficult for technology like this to be taken seriously by a broader audience.  The advantages (and occasional disadvantages) of this kind of environment are evident, but there's a tendency to view virtual reality systems as a toy, much as some of the general populace thinks of video games as entertainment for young people.  This is probably due in part to how it developed and that it is new, I wonder if it'll take as long as it takes for these young people to grow up before these technologies gain wider acceptance?