Caveat: I am a speaker at this seminar, so naturally I'm pretty excited about it. If you're in the Orange County, CA area on Friday, consider coming out to see luminaries like David Brin, Natasha Vita-More, Jess Nevins, and Jamais Cascio (and me!) discuss transhumanism and "The Biopolitics of Popular Culture." Organized by transhumanist braniac James Hughes, the conference will address our biotech future as a meme in pop culture as well as scientific development. Here's a description from the program:

Popular culture is full of tropes and cliches that shape our debates about emerging technologies. Our most transcendent expectations for technology come from pop culture, and the most common objections to emerging technologies come from science fiction and horror, from Frankenstein and Brave New World to Gattaca and the Terminator.

Why is it that almost every person in fiction who wants to live a longer than normal life is evil or pays some terrible price? What does it say about attitudes towards posthuman possibilities when mutants in Heroes or the X-Men, or cyborgs in Battlestar Galactica or Iron Man, or vampires in True Blood or Twilight are depicted as capable of responsible citizenship?

Is Hollywood reflecting a transhuman turn in popular culture, helping us imagine a day when magical and muggle can live together in a peaceful Star Trek federation? Will the merging of pop culture, social networking and virtual reality into a heightened augmented reality encourage us all to make our lives a form of participative fiction?

During this day long seminar we will engage with culture critics, artists, writers, and filmmakers to explore the biopolitics that are implicit in depictions of emerging technology in literature, film and television.

Here's a full list of speakers and a program.

Cost for the day is $150, or $100 for students, and includes lunch. For those who can't make it, the event will also be streaming live here, and a complete video record of the seminar will be posted online later.

Also, the venue for the conference is EON Reality, where engineers are researching 3D projections and other nifty virtual reality/augmented reality tech. There will be a demo!

Doctorow will be reading from his new novel Little Brother, and hopefully Rucker will read from the sequel to his novel Post-Singular, called Hylozoic. Charlie Jane will be reading something brilliantly weird, and I'll be reading something about why I love piracy.

I worked for a few years at EFF as their policy analyst and media outreach geek, and I'm still their lifelong fan for all the amazing work they do with civil liberties for the digital age. They educate the public about technology policies that harm consumers; fight for privacy and free speech online; agitate for hackers' rights to innovate; and litigate to protect fair use, anonymity, bloggers' rights to be treated as journalists, and many other things related to Great Justice. I'm delighted to participate in this event and promise it will be a smashing good time.

Here are the details, according to the EFF website:

Join EFF on Monday, March 23rd, for a fundraising event featuring award-winning writer Cory Doctorow. Cory will be reading from his novel, "Little Brother," a story of high-tech teenage rebellion set in the familiar world of San Francisco. As he currently calls the UK home, this is a rare opportunity to to hear Cory read from his work in person. He will be joined by fellow writers Rudy Rucker, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders reading from their latest works.

7pm on Monday March 23, at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco.

Admission is $25. No one turned away for lack of funds. Must be 21 or older to attend.

via EFF

Etech stands for Emerging Technology, and every year tech publisher O'Reilly brings together an amazing and startling collection of speakers who represent the cutting edge of science and tech innovation. Even explosion innovation: Chemistry researcher Christa Hockensmith will be visiting from New Mexico Tech's Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (AKA the Explosion Lab) to talk about the latest breakthroughs in explosion science. There will also be talks from synthetic biologist Drew Endy, game theorist Jane McGonigal, scifi author Maureen McHugh, hacker David Molnar, and io9 co-conspirator Lisa Katayama.

I was on the programming committee for Etech this year, which is partly why I'm pimping it: I've looked over all the talks and after-hours goodies and I know it's going to be a rip-roaring geek time. io9 readers get a special 10% discount off the cost of the conference if you use this special code: et09io9. And if you can't afford the cost of the conference, there are evening events that are open to the public.

Hope to see you at Etech, and if you can't make it, I'll write about some of it here so you can get the scoop.

Etech Conference

Image by Paul Shambroom.

And on Friday and Saturday, there are all-day events devoted to analyzing (yes, analyzing) the crossovers between sex, science, and science fiction. Featuring luminaries like Rudy Rucker, Carol Queen, Richard Kadrey, Constance Penley, and more! Come Thursday night to mingle and party. Come Friday and Saturday to grow a new brain in your pants. [Arse Elektronika]

You’re #1: Ian Ingram, Artist-In-Residence at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute’s CREATE Lab, has mounted a 15-foot tall foam finger in Steelers colors atop the Andy Warhol Museum. The finger points to individuals who “high five” any of a number of smaller foam fingers placed throughout the city. The finger encourages viewers to try to figure out where the finger is pointing and explore new and familiar parts of the city.

Reach, Robot: Composer and choreographer Grisha Coleman created an interactive musical installation. As pedestrians walk through Pittsburgh’s PPG Plaza, a web of cables suspended above their heads reacts to their motions. Walking, pausing, stepping, and reaching all trigger various sounds in the installation, immersing passersby in the musical and spoken works of the city’s African-American writers and artists.

Shelter: Garth Zeglin is a researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute whose work includes developing bipedal walking robots. But “Shelter” is a kinetic fabric robot. Viewers are invited to sit on a chair in the middle of two concentric fabric tents, which function independently of each other and respond to human presence as well as changes in light.

Extreme Animals: The Video Game: Inspired by his former job as the mascot at a Chuck E. Cheese, Matt Barton’s projects frequently include animatronic taxidermied animals. The animals of this work, created with Paper Rad member Jacob Ciocci, play frenzied video games, murmuring at and reacting to the game’s action. They glance back at approaching visitors, but promptly ignore them, returning their attention to the television screen.

ABB Basketball Arm: Perhaps the most well-traveled of the BigBots, this former automobile welder now shoots baskets at science museums across the country. The robot shoots free throws, with the angle and velocity of the ball selected by visitors, demonstrating concepts of precision and repeatability as well as how a single robot may serve diverse purposes.

The Look-See Tree: CMU grad student Ally Reeves designed a “Roving Art Cart” transported and powered by bicycle. The attached tree trunk lures viewers towards one of its six mini theaters, which come alive when it senses a human presence. Each theater displays an animatronic scene of animals whose existence is impacted by modern life; birds chirp cell phone rings and animals gather objects from the city for their nests.

Green Roof Roller Coaster: Gregory Witt and Joey Hays decided potted plants need a little more excitement in their lives, placing several young trees in a handmade rollercoaster on the roof of the Children’s Museum. The coaster’s cars monitor the vitals of the thrill-seeking vegetation and make sure they’re having a good time.

Rise and Fall: Artist Jennifer Gooch explores the nature of patriotic symbols and the ebb and flow of a nation’s dominance. Flags run up and down flagpoles and anthems play in a set loop. Visitors can send one flag to the top, but eventually it returns to its preset cycle.

Double-Taker: A robotic arm simulates human gestures and eye contact as it observes people outside the Center for Arts, making the occasional eponymous double-take. CMU Professor of Electronic Arts Golan Levin creates ocular art that changes based on the way the viewer views it.

prototype for an infinite array of semi-autonomous percussive devises (or Crickets): Kinetic sculptor Keny Marshall has created a network of cricket-like robots that knock out a certain pattern when they are “alive” and go silent when “dead,” that state determined through the rules of John Conway's “Game of Life.” Just like real crickets, this installation produces constant changes in harmony, with the added benefit that you can turn it off.

Mower: An android’s dream might be John Deere’s worst nightmare. An allusive electric sheep wanders the lawns of the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, providing all the benefits of grazing animal without the need for a pooper scooper. Mechanical engineer and visiting professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art Osman Khan deliberately created a robot that solves a problem with already existing solutions.

The Robot 250 Festival ends July 27, although some events and exhibits continue into August.

[Robot 250]

Logline: The Blair Witch meets Event Horizon. Tag Line: Finite Space, Infinite Power

A director's equipment-clad crew of nonconformist semi-pros discover a film camera deserted on location, further investigation turns up footage that would make a horror director proud. The photon sphere surrounding the camera is accompanied by an unearthly presence. The entity channels power through the creative process to lure crew members into situations, situations they may not escape...

This film is shooting in Richmond in October and November, with Rob Byrne directing. There's contact info online, for any Virginians who fancy playing a "hyper sorority rich girl" or an "eclectic artsy director." Good times!

Casting call [via The Camera Eye]