Thursday, April 10, 2003
Renaissance man a highlight of USI RISC Showcase
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An internationally recognized computer scientist, visual artist, composer, philosopher, and scholar, Jaron Lanier will be the keynote speaker at University of Southern Indiana’s 2003 Research, Innovation, Scholarship, and Creativity Showcase April 26. His free presentation will begin at 9 a.m. in Mitchell Auditorium in the Health Professions Center, and the public is invited to attend. A pioneer in virtual reality, Lanier co-developed the first VR glove and VR head-mounted displays. He also coined the term “virtual reality” and founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. He now serves as lead scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, where studies focus on advanced applications for Internet 2, and is chief scientist of Eyematic Interfaces, where research explores computer vision. Lanier’s latest research, in what he calls “Phenotropics,” concerns new ways of binding software components together to improve large-scale reliability. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe, and his first one-man show took place in 1997 at the Danish Museum for Modern Art. A pianist and specialist in unusual musical instruments, Lanier has performed with a diverse group of musicians including Philip Glass and Sean Lennon. He composes chamber and orchestral pieces, and his recent commissions include a concert-length sequence celebrating the 1,000th birthday of the city of Wroclaw, Poland. Lanier’s writings embrace a variety of topics, including high technology business, the social impact of technological practices, the philosophy of consciousness and information, Internet politics, and the future of humanism. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Discover, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harper’s Magazine, The Sciences, Wired Magazine, and Scientific American. A resident of New York City, Lanier holds no academic degrees but has several university appointments, including Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth; Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania; the Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts; and the Computer Science Department, Columbia University. USI student presentations will follow Lanier’s keynote address in the 2003 RISC Showcase and will continue throughout the day in the Liberal Arts Center. The RISC Program is designed to encourage independent faculty-guided undergraduate research and creative projects at USI. For more information, call 812/465-7137. |
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