Alan N. Shapiro

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, posthumanism, French philosophy, creative coding, technological art, sociology of culture, social choreography, software theory, robotics, artificial intelligence, and futuristic and transdisciplinary 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][8][9][10] - have contributed to a change in public perception about the importance of Baudrillard's work for culture, philosophy, sociology, and design.

Alan N. Shapiro
Born (1956-04-23) 23 April 1956
Brooklyn, New York
NationalityAmerican
Alma materMIT
Cornell University
New York University
Known forChanged public perceptions of Star Trek, Changed public perceptions of Baudrillard, Introduced idea of Dialogical Artificial Intelligence
Scientific career
FieldsScience fiction studies, Media theory, Technological art, Social choreography, Artificial intelligence, Transdisciplinary design, posthumanism

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.[11][12][13] 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,[14] software theory,[15] Computer Science 2.0,[16] futuristic design,[17] the political philosophy of the information society,[18] and Baudrillard and the Situationists.[19]

Career

Shapiro has been 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.[20]

He has also been a lecturer at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, at the Art and Design Universities in Offenbach (where he taught creative coding and futuristic design from 2012 to 2015)[21] and Karlsruhe;[22] at the Institute of Time-Based Media at the University of the Arts, Berlin;[23] at Domus Academy of Design and Fashion in Milan;[24] and at ABADIR Design Academy in Catania.[25]

From October 2015 to September 2017, Shapiro was visiting professor of Transdisciplinary Design in the Department of Industrial Design at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen.[26]

Since October 2017, Shapiro is a lecturer in media theory at the Art University of Bremen, and teaches "design and informatics" at the University of Applied Sciences, Lucerne, Switzerland.

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.

Publications

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 was published in German by the Walther König Verlag in 2014.[29]

His edited book Transdisciplinary Design was published by the Passagen Verlag in 2017.[30]

He has chapters in the books Design und Mobilität: wie werden wir bewegt sein? (2019),[31] Nevertheless: Manifestos and Digital Culture (2018),[32] Searching for Heterotopia (2019),[33] and Tracelation (2018).[34]

Shapiro has published several widely cited essays on the disaster of Donald Trump in relation to hyper-modernism.[35][36][37] In 2019, he published an influential essay on Dialogical Artificial Intelligence in the magazine of the German national cultural foundation.[38] He has lectured several times on the meaning of Patrick McGoohan's TV show The Prisoner.[39]

The 2017 Audi Annual Report features a discussion about the impact of AI on society between Shapiro, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler, and David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, Hong Kong.

Shapiro has also been featured as a thinker by Bertellsmann in "We Magazine",[40] by Deutsche Bank in "Economy Stories,"[41] and in the technology and fashion print magazine WU (Milan).[42]

Lectures and keynotes

In 2010–2011, Shapiro lectured on "The Car of the Future" at Transmediale in Berlin, Germany,[43][44] and on robots and androids at Ars Electronica.[45][46]

In September 2011, Shapiro gave a major speech at the Plektrum Festival in Tallinn, Estonia on "The Meaning of Life."[47]

Since 2011, Shapiro has been keynote speaker at several conferences:

  • "Knowledge of the Future" at the University of Vienna (2011),[48]
  • BOBCATSSS conference on Information Management of the organization of European university libraries (2012),[49]
  • IEEE Conference on the Information Society in London (2012),
  • ISI International Symposium of Information Science, University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam (2013),[50]
  • retune Creative Technology conference in Berlin (2013),[51]
  • Alig'Art Festival on Sustainability in Cagliari (2014),[52]
  • the conference on interactive media and utopia at Jagiellonian University, Krakow (2014),[53]
  • the conference on hyper-modernism at the National Center of Scientific Research, Paris (2016),
  • the conference on art and politics in Italy, and the conference on transdisciplinary design, at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen (2017),[54]
  • the Zurich Design Biennale (2017),[55]
  • the Quadraga University "Transform Your Business" conference in Berlin (2018),
  • the Swiss National Additive Manufacturing conference in Lucerne (2018).[56]

Lectures
  • In July 2012, Shapiro gave the International Flusser Lecture at the Vilém Flusser Archive, Institute for Time-Based Media, University of the Arts, Berlin.[57]
  • In October 2016, Shapiro gave a lecture on artificial intelligence and science fiction at the BASE Cultural Center, Milan that was attended by 350 people.[58]
  • In 2018, Shapiro spoke at the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and at Pratt Institute of Design in Brooklyn, NY.
  • In August 2019, Shapiro gave a lecture on Baudrillard in French at the renowned Cerisy-la-Salle cultural center in Normandy.[59]
  • In February 2020, Shapiro gave a lecture on "Body, Self and Code in Hypermodernism" at the Schaubühne theater in Berlin that was attended by 450 people, as part of the Streitraum series of events moderated by Carolin Emcke.[60]
  • In July 2020, Shapiro was the keynote speaker at the European Union conference on "Media in the Digital Society," giving a talk entitled "How to Regulate the Media when they are ubiquitous and have gone viral: from utopian science fiction to practical European policy."[61]
  • In October 2020, Shapiro was featured on the 3Sat German TV program Kulturzeit, as part of their 25th anniversary Zeitwende show, talking about Science Fiction as a utopian model of thinking.[62]

Science fiction

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.[63] See also the extensive discussions of Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance in Csicsery-Ronay's major reference work on science fiction studies,[64] in The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction[65] and in The Yearbook of English Studies.[66]

Life

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).

Shapiro has lived almost exactly half of his life in the United States (32 years), and half in Europe (31 years—mostly in Germany, but also some years in Italy, Switzerland and France).

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 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, CTHEORY (June 1997)
  3. Alan Shapiro, The Star Trekking of Physics Archived 2016-11-27 at the Wayback Machine, CTHEORY (October 1997)
  4. Alan N. Shapiro, Data as Sherlock Holmes: Ship in a Bottle Archived 2012-09-09 at archive.today, Red Room (June 2010)
  5. Alan N. Shapiro, Re-Discovering Baudreality in America Archived 2018-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, 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) Archived 2018-04-24 at the Wayback Machine, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (July 2005)
  7. Alan N. Shapiro, Cultural Citizenship In Contemporary America Archived 2018-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (January 2010)
  8. Alan N. Shapiro, Jean Baudrillard and Albert Camus on the Simulacrum of Taking a Stance on War Archived 2017-08-30 at the Wayback Machine, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (May 2014)
  9. Alan N. Shapiro, Baudrillard and Existentialism: Taking the Side of Objects Archived 2017-01-01 at the Wayback Machine, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (July 2016)
  10. Alan N. Shapiro, Gerry Coulter, Sophie Calle and Baudrillard’s Pursuit in Venice, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (October 2018)
  11. Alan N. Shapiro, Dear Grace (Patterns Are Everywhere Remix Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, Choreograph.net (March 2009)
  12. Alan N. Shapiro, Social Choreography: Steve Valk and the Situationists Archived 2011-03-26 at the Wayback Machine, Choreograph.net (July 2010)
  13. Alan N. Shapiro, Play Don't Work in a Pragmatic-Utopian High-Tech Enterprise Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, Choreograph.net (December 2009)
  14. Alan N. Shapiro, Gianna Maria Gatti's The Technological Herbarium, NoemaLab.org (February 2009)
  15. Alan N. Shapiro, Society of the Instance, NoemaLab.org (2001)
  16. Alan N. Shapiro and Bernhard Angerer, The Paradigm of Object Spaces: Better Software is Coming, alan-shapiro.com (Feb 2013)
  17. Alan N. Shapiro and Alan Cholodenko, Car of the Future, NoemaLab.org (July 2009)
  18. Alan N. Shapiro, Political Philosophy of the Information Society, NoemaLab.eu (September 2012)
  19. Alan N. Shapiro, Baudrillard and the Situationists, NoemaLab.eu (September 2018)
  20. Alan Shapiro spiega Star Trek
  21. Senior Lecturer, Offenbach Art and Design University
  22. Alan N. Shapiro, Computer Games and Transmedia
  23. Alan N. Shapiro, Software Beyond Software
  24. "Domus Academy Masters in Interaction Design". Archived from the original on 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  25. Alan N. Shapiro, Creative Coding
  26. "Visiting Professor of Transdisciplinary Design, Folkwang University of the Arts". Archived from the original on 2017-01-02. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  27. Gatti, Gianna Maria (2010). The Technological Herbarium. Berlin: AVINUS Press. ISBN 978-3-86938-012-4.
  28. Gormly, Jeffrey (2008). Framemakers: Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change. Limerick: Daghdha Dance Company. ISBN 978-0-9558585-1-2.
  29. Alan N. Shapiro, Die Software der Zukunft: oder Das Modell geht der Realität voraus
  30. Transdisziplinäre Gestaltung
  31. Mobilität und Science Fiction
  32. Light-Writing from Las Vegas
  33. Science Fiction and Heterotopia
  34. "Towards a Software of the Concealing World". Archived from the original on 2019-12-10. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  35. Alan N. Shapiro, Baudrillard and Trump: Simulation and Object-Orientation, Not True and False
  36. Alan N. Shapiro, Baudrillard and Trump: The Fifth Order of Simulacra
  37. Alan N. Shapiro, Donald Trump Casino Owner: seduced to losing by the lure of winning
  38. "Alan N. Shapiro, A Roadmap to Intelligent Life. On the Way to Dialogical Artificial Intelligence". Archived from the original on 2019-12-10. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  39. Alan N. Shapiro, The Prisoner as The Hostage and the Episode A. B. and C.
  40. "Alan N. Shapiro, Rethinking Science". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2010-11-19.
  41. Alan N. Shapiro, Hybrid Thinking
  42. "Alan N. Shapiro, Intervista". Archived from the original on 2017-01-01. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  43. video of Car of the Future talk, part 1
  44. video of Car of the Future talk, part 2
  45. Alan N. Shapiro, Towards a Unified Existential Science of Humans and Androids, NoemaLab.org (November 2010)
  46. Alan N. Shapiro, An Interdisciplinary Approach to Building Robots
  47. "Alan N. Shapiro, What is the Meaning of Life?". Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2011-09-23.
  48. Alan N. Shapiro, Anticipating the Future Through Knowledge of the Fiction in Social Reality
  49. Alan N. Shapiro, The Future of Social Media
  50. Alan N. Shapiro, Semantic Information Science
  51. "Alan N. Shapiro, Software Code as Hybrid of Productive and Creative". Archived from the original on 2016-08-15. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  52. "Alan N. Shapiro, Sustainability in Art, Ecology and Economics". Archived from the original on 2017-01-02. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  53. "Alan N. Shapiro, Storytelling and Ideas in the Age of Computer-Intensive Media Products". Archived from the original on 2017-01-01. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  54. Transdisciplinary Design conference Folkwang University
  55. Zurich Design Biennale
  56. Swiss Manufacturing Association conference
  57. Alan N. Shapiro, Software Studies as Extension of Media Theory
  58. Alan N. Shapiro, Riporgettare L'umano
  59. Alan N. Shapiro, L'importance de Baudrillard pour l'avenir
  60. Alan N. Shapiro, Body, Self and Code in Hypermodernism
  61. Alan N. Shapiro, How to Regulate the Media when they have gone viral
  62. Alan N. Shapiro, Kulturzeit TV show
  63. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Escaping Star Trek, Science Fiction Studies (November 2005).
  64. Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008), 136-138
  65. 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,
  66. 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).
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