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Jimmy, the intelligent robot and companion from Brian David Johnson's "Egerton Stories"
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Current CSf Activities:
- 3rd Conference on Creative Science (to be announced)
- Call For Papers for a special issue of the FUTURES journal, published by Elsevier, Amsterdam on "Exploring Future Business Visions Using Creative Fictional Prototypes". The deadline for submission is the 29th February 2012.
- Screen Futures (Essex University, Mon 14th Nov 2011)
- Forest of Stories (to be announced)
- Tomorrow; London (to be announced)
- iWorlds - Searching for Free Will (online competition - to be announced)
Previous CSf Activities:
- 1st Workshop on Creative Science (Kuala-Lumpur July 2010)
- 2nd Workshop on Creative Science (Nottingham, UK, July 2011)
CSf Education:
- Universities using SF-Prototyping (and Brian David Johnson's book) to support teaching include the University of Washington where Tadayoshi Kohno uses it to teach computer security (see a paper he wrote about this) and Sarah Pérez-Kriz who uses to teach HCI (see a brief course summary). Also, Denisa Kera in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at The National University of Singapore uses the book to support design oriented programmes and projects (in 2011/12 a 2nd year module on “Interactive Media Design: Theory” and 3rd year level module on Critical Design), In addition Marc Tuters at the University of Amsterdam uses it to teach HCI.
- Creative tool kit to build embedded-computing, or "internet of things" products <paper> <video>
- The BBC reported Google chairman Eric Schmidt as saying the UK needed to reignite children's passion for science, engineering and maths. He suggested the UK needed to bring art and science back together (as it had in the "glory days of the Victorian era" when Lewis Carroll wrote one of the classic fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, and was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford).
- An example of a SF-Prototype story that has led to real research and collaboration with a company to bring the vision to life.
- Faculty-Copperative - a forum to promote open collabortion between university researchers and teachers.
Related Activities:
- The Original Intel "Tomorrow Project"; SciFi stories by professional authors, commisioned by Intel, which paint amusing and thought-provoking scenarios of future technology. See "Morrow Project PDF eBook and mp3 audio book.
- The current Intel Tomorrow project. This new venture has a number of instances, the first being the Tomorrow Project Seattle hosted by the University of Washington, which included 7 videos made by Intel that describe future possibilities of technology. Future plans include a "Tomorrow Rio de Janeiro" to be hosted by the Museum of Tomorrow in Brazil and a "Tomorrow London project.
Miscellaneous:
- The Singularity Institute - an organisation that looks forward to the time when technological creations become smarter-than-human intelligence!
- Cafe Scientifique - a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants etc (ie not a traditional academic context).
- British Science Association - seeks to advance the public understanding, accessibility and accountability of the sciences and engineering in the UK.
- earth:NOW:- features work created by artists Valentin Manz & Christine Cynn inspired by Church Farm Ardeley over a 16-month collaboration with the high-welfare, ecological farm.
- Scientific Theatre - Art, performance, and creative work are, in general, subjective which makes them very risky as a business. However, they are powerful tools, capable of influencing and affecting peoples' views, mind, life, and the future. This international workshop explored the complex relationships between the arts and technology with a view to finding synergy that would lead to more interesting outcomes for people.
Some Related Quotations:
- What is now proved was once only imagined -William Blake (1757-1827)
- The scientist needs an artistically creative imagination - Max Planck (1858 – 1947)
- Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination - John Dewey (1859-1952)
- To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- The task is not to see what has never been seen before, but to think what has never been thought before about what you see everyday - Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)
- Art and science, it is clear, are neither new partners nor new antagonists; they are inextricable elements of the same historical quest for and understanding of life. Paul Liam Harrison (from the Book "Designs for Life")
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