KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Michael Heim (University of California at Irvine)

Keynote: Time, Space, and Dream Life: Human-Avatar Identity in Today's Workplace

Today's workplace includes virtual meetings on a daily basis with colleagues in China, India, Switzerland, the United States, et cetera - all interacting as members of a team and each member projecting a unique avatar constructed by telephone voice, email, instant messaging, selected photos, and linked associations. The real-time aspects of avatar telepresence impose schedules across time zones that alter sleep patterns in human members of the virtual team. Shifts in sleep patterns re-shape psychological dispositions, affecting dreams and subconscious psychic life. Depth psychologists have long located self-identity and self-perception in these "germinal dispositions" or instinctive patterns that flow through the subconscious brain. The avatar self-construct creates a feedback loop that alters the first-person self - a theme of the James Cameron film. This talk will explore some of these subconscious changes as they pertain to regional loyalties, national identities, and hermeneutic (interpretive / linguistic) viewpoints. The conclusions offer some suggestions about the long-term imprint of avatar self-identity in the virtual workplace. Workshop: The related workshop will present and discuss in-depth several samples that support the plenary talk on "Human-Avatar Identity in Today's Workplace." The samples come from the actual 2010 working environment of an IT specialist in a major company. The samples will support the suggestions mentioned in the plenary talk.

Sigrid Norris (Multimodal Research Centre, Auckland University of Technology)

Keynote: TBA

Workshop: TBA