Alan N. Shapiro

Alan N. Shapiro
Born (1956-04-23) 23 April 1956
Brooklyn, New York
Nationality United States
Fields Science fiction studies, Media theory, Technological art, Social choreography, Humanities informatics, Computer Science 2.0
Alma mater MIT
Cornell University
New York University
Known for Changed public perceptions of Star Trek, Changed public perceptions of Baudrillard
Influences Baudrillard, Derrida, Virilio, Camus

Alan N. Shapiro (born 23 April 1956 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American science fiction and media theorist. He is a lecturer and essayist in the fields of science fiction studies, media theory, French philosophy, technological art, sociology of culture, social choreography, software theory, humanities informatics, Computer Science 2.0, robotics, rethinking science, and futuristic design. Shapiro's book[1] and other published writings on Star Trek have contributed to a change in public perception about the importance of Star Trek for contemporary culture.[2][3][4] His published essays on Jean Baudrillard - especially in the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies[5][6][7] - have contributed to a change in public perception about the importance of Baudrillard's work for culture, philosophy, and sociology.

Shapiro has co-developed many of the core ideas of the emerging field of social choreography, contributing many essays to the field's most important journal, Choreograph.net.[8][9][10] He is a founding member of the Institute for Social Choreography in Frankfurt. He has also contributed many essays to the journal of technology and society NoemaLab — on technological art,[11] software theory ,[12] Computer Science 2.0, futuristic design,[13] and the political philosophy of the information society,.[14]

In 2010-2011, Shapiro lectured on "The Car of the Future" at Transmediale in Berlin, Germany,[15][16] and on robots and androids at Ars Electronica and at the Interface Culture lab of the Arts University in Linz, Austria.[17][18] In September 2011, Shapiro gave a major speech at the Plektrum Festival in Tallinn, Estonia on "The Meaning of Life."[19] In November 2011, Shapiro was the keynote speaker at the conference on "Knowledge of the Future" at the University of Vienna.[20] In January 2012, Shapiro was a keynote speaker at the BOBCATSSS conference on Information Management of the organization of European university libraries.[21] In January 2012, Shapiro gave a lecture on media theory in the Speakers' Series of the Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.[22] In March 2012, Shapiro gave two lectures on futuristic design at the Sandberg Institute of Arts and Design in Amsterdam.[23] In June 2012, Shapiro was a keynote speaker at the IEEE Conference on the Information Society in London. In July 2012, Shapiro gave the International Flusser Lecture at the Vilém Flusser Archive, Institute for Time-Based Media, University of the Arts, Berlin.[24] In January–February 2013, Shapiro spoke on "Art and Design in the Age of New Media and New Technologies" at the Bath Spa University School of Art and Design, and on "The Future of Software" at Transmediale.[25] In March 2013, Shapiro was a keynote speaker at the ISI International Symposium of Information Science, University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam.[26] Shapiro is a visiting professor in the Department of Film and New Media at the NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) University of Arts and Design in Milan. He is also a lecturer at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and at the Art and Design University in Offenbach.

Shapiro is the editor and translator of The Technological Herbarium by Gianna Maria Gatti, a groundbreaking book about technological art.[27] He has three contributions to the innovative book on social choreography Framemakers: Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change[28] edited by Jeffrey Gormly. His book Software of the Future: The Model Precedes the Real will be published in German by the Walther König Press in 2013.

Shapiro is also a software developer, with nearly 20 years industry experience in C++ and Java development. He has worked on several projects for Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn (DB Systel), and media and telecommunications companies. Shapiro's entrepreneurial goal is to found a company that will be active in humanities informatics and Computer Science 2.0. Existing informatics tends to automate everything, and it is based only on the rational-calculating left brain (see Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village). A different informatics that incorporates the creativity and human knowledge of the entire brain is possible, Shapiro describes in Re-Thinking Science conducted by Ulrike Reinhard.

Key texts published so far towards the invention of Computer Science 2.0 are: "Design for a Working Quantum Computer in Software",[29] "The Paradigm of Object Spaces: Better Software is Coming" (co-author: Bernhard Angerer).,[30] and "A Proposal for Developing Quantum Computing in Software" (co-author: Alexis Clancy).[31]

Shapiro was accepted at age 15 as an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He studied at MIT for 2 years. He received his B.A. from Cornell University, where he studied government and European Intellectual History. He has an M.A. in sociology from New York University (NYU). In a 10-page review-essay of his book Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, the journal Science Fiction Studies called his book one of the most original works in the field of science fiction theory.[32] See also the extensive discussions of Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance in Csicsery-Ronay's major reference work on science fiction studies,[33] in The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction[34] and in The Yearbook of English Studies.[35]

Shapiro has lived most of his life in the United States, but also 24 years in Europe (20 of them in Germany).

References

  1. ↑ Shapiro, Alan N. (2004). Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance. Berlin: AVINUS Press. ISBN 3-930064-16-2.
  2. ↑ Alan Shapiro, Captain Kirk Was Never the Original, CTHEORY (June 1997)
  3. ↑ Alan Shapiro, The Star Trekking of Physics, CTHEORY (October 1997)
  4. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Data as Sherlock Holmes: Ship in a Bottle, Red Room (June 2010)
  5. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Re-Discovering Baudreality in America, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (January 2009)
  6. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Baudrillard and Trek-nology (Or Everything I Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek and Reading Jean Baudrillard), International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (July 2005)
  7. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Cultural Citizenship In Contemporary America, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (Autumn 2002)
  8. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Dear Grace (Patterns Are Everywhere Remix, Choreograph.net (March 2009)
  9. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Social Choreography: Steve Valk and the Situationists, Choreograph.net (July 2010)
  10. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Play Don't Work in a Pragmatic-Utopian High-Tech Enterprise, Choreograph.net (December 2009)
  11. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Gianna Maria Gatti's The Technological Herbarium, NoemaLab.org (February 2009)
  12. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Society of the Instance, NoemaLab.org (2001)
  13. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro and Alan Cholodenko, The Car of the Future, NoemaLab.org (July 2009)
  14. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Political Philosophy of the Information Society, NoemaLab.eu (September 2012)
  15. ↑ video of Car of the Future talk, part 1
  16. ↑ video of Car of the Future talk, part 2
  17. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Towards a Unified Existential Science of Humans and Androids, NoemaLab.org (November 2010)
  18. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, An Interdisciplinary Approach to Building Robots
  19. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, What is the Meaning of Life?
  20. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Anticipating the Future Through Knowledge of the Fiction in Social Reality
  21. ↑ http://hva.mediamission.nl/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=586555cfde42435bb7b22cdccb5c07af1d
  22. ↑ http://www.trentu.ca/theorycentre/speakers_winter.php
  23. ↑ http://www.alan-shapiro.com/lecture-performance-in-amsterdam-alan-n-shapiro-and-regan-obrien/
  24. ↑ http://www.flusser-archive.org/
  25. ↑ http://www.transmediale.de/content/software-future-or-model-precedes-real
  26. ↑ http://www.isi2013.de/keynotes/
  27. ↑ Gatti, Gianna Maria (2010). The Technological Herbarium. Berlin: AVINUS Press. ISBN 3-86938-012-8.
  28. ↑ Gormly, Jeffrey (2008). Framemakers: Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change. Limerick: Daghdha Dance Company. ISBN 0-9558585-1-8.
  29. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro, Design for a Working Quantum Computer in Software, (May 2011)
  30. ↑ Bernhard Angerer and Alan N. Shapiro, The Paradigm of Object Spaces: Better Software is Coming, (June 2011)
  31. ↑ Alan N. Shapiro and Alexis Clancy, A Proposal for Developing Quantum Computing in Software, (July 2009)
  32. ↑ Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Escaping Star Trek, Science Fiction Studies (November 2005).
  33. ↑ Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008), 136-138
  34. ↑ Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint, eds., The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (Routledge Literature Companions) (New York: Routledge, 2009), 228-234 passim, 370-372,
  35. ↑ Bould, Mark, "On the boundary between oneself and the other: aliens and language in the films AVP, Dark City, The Brother from Another Planet, and Possible Worlds", The Yearbook of English Studies (July 2007).

External links

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