To all who have suggested a speaker, you can start contacting/emailing them now. We have finalized the date and venue.

 

Email Template

 

Dear __________,

 

There's a free, open-source, community-powered unconference coming up on December 6, 2008 in Portland, Oregon: CyborgCamp—a venue where hybrids, information architects, wiki enthusiasts, futurists, social media consultants, inventors, hackers, programmers, and technologists can celebrate and ponder the future of the relationship between human and technology.

 

The idea was born on Twitter, and quickly extended excitement into the local communities surrounding two locations, Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, B.C. It was developed and matured over the period of only a day.

 

It’s called CyborgCamp. And if this is your kind of thing, we would love for you to speak at the conference!

Sincerely,

(your name here)

 

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Does humans + computers/technology = evolution?

What makes a person a cyborg?

What makes a machine a cyborg?

What is Cyborg Anthropology?

 

Suggested Speakers:

 

Joshua Green (MIT Convergence Culture Lab)

Bill Joy (Great speaker, into tech).

Doug Englebart (inventor of the Mouse)

Donna Haraway (founder of Cyborg Anthropology --> resides in Colorado)

Sandy Stone (Student of Donna Haraway's)

Deborah Heath (Professor of Anthropology, Cyborg Anthropology, Lewis & Clark College)

William Gibson (Everyone Knows)

Neal Stephenson (Perhaps even more relevant than Gibson, anymore)

Brian Eno   (awesome musician)

 

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More Suggestions: 

 

troismarteaux says:  

Speaker Suggestion: Aimee Mullins - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Mullins - kind of an analog cyborg, if such a thing exists. But her prosthetics - especially the high-speed ones - represent an amazing melding of biology and technology.

 

troismarteaux says:   

Speaker Suggestion (kind of an obvious one): Stelarc - http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/ - one of the most interesting artistic explorers of cyborgization.

 

@unclenate says:  Try contacting Marc Pauline at SRL in Oakland. Have done telerobotics, hooked in Make(r) crowd as well http://bit.ly/3ff37

 

@kk says: let's invite Aimee Mullins: an athlete, actress, and model despite a disability that resulted in the amputation of her legs.

 

@smith says: Roman Onufrijchuk. Excellent dude. Philosophy of robots

 

@cfisk from Android -> Cyborg at LLab. Anyway, suggest Rodney Brooks, MIT, if you've seen Errol Morris' movie "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" (see Brooks article on Wikipedia).

 

J-P Voillequé of EASCI says: 

if you're a suit, you sit on a panel and get asked questions. This allows you to unbutton (the Disney guys said pretty smart stuff in the Q & A) and also limits your ability to bombard us with pitches. This includes, in my opinion, media (as opposed to thought) leaders like Mr. Uphoff. I'm sure he's really good at speaking off the cuff. Hell, have him moderate. He's more than capable of that."

Also from JPV: What's in a name? The confusion (in the alchemical sense) of human and app is taking place all around us all the time. Taking as given that we are living in a machine, how broad does the concept of cyborg need to be? What about "cyberactivity" within the cloud? And the payoff question: is there an "Overview Effect" in the information space, and is that consciousness what makes a cyborg a cyborg? This is riffing a bit on the "What is a cyborg" discussion, and strikes me as very interesting...

 

Suggestions from @tylersticka (because I don't wish to impede on the headers of others)

 

Tristan Perich, electronic artist/musician who created 1-bit music (I talked with Amber, Bram and Mark about this briefly). His site appears to be down at this exact moment, but his project is viewable at http://www.1bitmusic.com/ and his email address is mail@tristanperich.com

 

If you can't get Tristan, I'd recommend hitting up 2 Player Productions to see if you can't do a screening of the documentary "Reformat the Planet" (in which Tristan is a featured musician). The film is about musicians using primarily Game Boy and vintage video game equipment organizing a festival of their music. http://www.2playerproductions.com/

 

Amber had also mentioned the possibility of me speaking about the relevancy of electronics in music; if we get Eno, Perich, or anyone else, I fully expect to be bumped (rightfully so), but I'd love to speak on the topic if given the chance. It's been said that we'll be having musicians in attendance, and if there would be any way to conduct an interview as part of the presentation, that should also be explored.

 

Thanks for tolerating this stream-of-consciousness!

 

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Confirmed Speakers

 

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09/08/08

Bill DeRouchey / @billder

Is Machine Language expanding Human Language?

 

“As technology creeps more and more into our everyday lives,” DeRouchey explains, “the language of technology also permeates our culture. It’s expanding our language, giving us new metaphors for thinking and communicating. The play symbol, the mouse pointer, the @ sign are all examples of symbols with deepening layers of meaning and becoming true icons within our language. This session will spot trends of how humans and technology are forming a symbiotic language, hopefully leading to a fun and esoteric discussion”.

 

About

Bill is a frequent speaker at industry events such as the Interaction 08, Webvisions and Adaptive Path’s User Experience Week. He is also on the board of directors of IxDA, the Interaction Design Association.On the side, he’s working on his electric ukulele.

He’s the author of Push. Click. Touch, a blog tracing the past, present and future of how people and technology interact. (Formerly known as History of the Button.)

 

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Lia Hollander / @missburrows

"How being a cyborg keeps me alive"

 

About: A graduate of Simmons College, Lia has worked in diverse work environments including the Psych. ward at Children's Hospital Boston and the Human Resources department at Sharp Labs of America.

 

She co-owned and ran a enterprise software company for 7 years and most recently co-created Treasurelicious (a free widget that you add to your website to show your treasures off to your friends).

 

An avid believer in comprehensive sex education and female empowerment, Lia volunteered with Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette for four years, during which she led community outreach events, met with Washington State Senators and Representatives, and had numerous letters to the editor published in newspapers and magazines.

 

The blogger behind A.R. and Proud, Lia is also co-creator of Camp Naughty and a regular on the Strange Love Live podcast.

 

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the tender age of 14, Lia has volunteered at various American Diabetes Association events to educate others about insulin pump therapy.

 

Lia will talk about the electronics that help keep her healthy and alive, the difficult decision to be attached 24/7 to an insulin pump and that "cyborgs" do in fact have sex.

 

There will be time for Q&A, open discussion on defining the role in medicine and actual insulin pumps and glucose meters for you to play with.

 

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Klint Finley / @klintron

"Left Behind: the Singularity and the Developing World"

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How do technological breakthroughs impact the world's poor? Can we apply transhumanist technology universally, or will they be accessible only to the rich? What can we learn from the bottom-up innovation of the developing world? Klint Finley will present a brief introduction to these issues and moderate an open discussion.

 

About

Klint Finley is the editor in chief of Technoccult, was a contributor to Margin Walker and WorldChanging Portland, and is an organizer of PDX Occulture and Esozone.

 

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Hideshi Hamaguchi / @hideshione

Will confirm topic next week. 

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Doug Coleman / @dougcoleman (?)

 

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@caseorganic Who was that that showed the self-replicating machine (Reprap) at OSCON? They would be perfect for #cyborgcamp

@chrispitzer

I heard the reprap guys talking in one of their videos (on reprap.org) about how they wanted to have reprap parties where someone would show up with a reprap, and everyone at the party could leave with one.  This could be a thing going on in the background during the camp, or after hours, or something.  Or it could be a big distraction... thoughts?