The future of virtual reality (VR) is poised to be transformative, reshaping industries, enhancing human connection, and redefining how we work, play, and learn. From gaming and entertainment to education and healthcare, virtual realities and digital spaces continue to evolve, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation. However, the evolution of the metaverse also necessitates careful consideration of its societal and environmental impacts.
The panel will feature Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Berkeley; Emma Fraser, Assistant Teaching Professor in Media Studies and the Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley; and Clancy Wilmott, Assistant Professor in Critical Cartography, Geovisualisation and Design in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley.
Matrix On Point is a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. These thought-provoking events are free and open to the public.
Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for New Media, Department of Geography, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and the Department of Media Studies.
Panelists
Alex Saum-Pascual is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature and New Media at UC Berkeley. Her research expands on the relationship between literature and digital technologies from different perspectives. Saum-Pascual’s book #Postweb! Crear con la máquina y en la Red (Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2018) analyzes the influence of electronic writing technologies on both printed and born-digital books, exploring what this means for literary experimentalism, and for the prevalence of the literary canon in Spain. Her new book project, Earthy Algorithms: A Materialist Approach to Capital, Climate and Digital Literature (forthcoming 2024), focuses on the work of digital artists from Spain and the Latin American Diaspora who reconfigure digital materiality not only in relation to its physical and signifying strategies but also regarding late stage modernity and its exploitation of the Earth and its human and non-human inhabitants.
Clancy Wilmott is an Assistant Professor in Critical Cartography, Geovisualisation and Design in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley. Wilmott received her PhD in Human Geography at the University of Manchester with a multi-site study on the interaction between mobile phone maps, cartographic discourse and postcolonial landscapes. Professor Wilmott researches critical cartography, new media and spatial practices. She is the author of Mobile Mapping: Space, Cartography, and the Digital published in 2020 by Amsterdam University Press. She has also published papers in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Big Data and Society, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac and the Journal of Television and New Media, amongst others.
Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media at the University of California-Berkeley, conducts research on global internet infrastructure, with a focus on the subsea cables that carry almost 100% of transoceanic internet traffic. Starosielski is author or co-editor of over thirty articles and five books on media, infrastructure, and environments, including: The Undersea Network (2015). Starosielski’s most recent project, Sustainable Subsea Networks (https://www.sustainablesubseanetworks.com/), is working to enhance the sustainability of subsea cable infrastructures.
Emma Fraser is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Media Studies and the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) at UC Berkeley. Fraser teaches digital media methods, digital storytelling, game studies, and new media theory and practice to graduate and undergraduate students. Her research considers digital culture, space and place, modern ruins, and visual media in relation to urban experience and the writings of Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School. Fraser also researches and writes about games and play across sociology, geography, game studies and media and cultural theory.
View Map