I’m doing a talk at SxSW in a couple of weeks, with my exceedingly smart friend Sally Applin (@anthropunk). Our topic is “Polysocial Reality and the Enspirited World” reflecting Sally’s PhD work on PoSR and our related interests in ubicomp, social media and augmented reality. Originally Bruce Sterling was part of our panel, but sadly the SxSW people overruled that as Bruce is already doing another keynote. Apparently nobody gets to speak twice, not even the venerable @bruces. It’s too bad, as he would have injected a great contrapuntal viewpoint. Nonetheless we are going to have a lot of fun, and I hope that a few people will show up to hear us. If you’re in Austin on the 13th, come by and say hello, we would love to see you!

Polysocial Reality and the Enspirited World

The merging of the physical and digital into a blended reality is a profound change to our world that demands examination. In this session we will explore this concept through the lenses of technology, anthropology and cyberculture. We will debate the ideas of PolySocial Reality, which describes our multiple, multiplexed, synchronous and ansynchronous data connections; Augmented Reality; and the Enspirited World of people, places and things suffused with digital information energy.