Animating Digital Identites

ADI

Business Name

ANIMATING DIGITAL IDENTITIES

“Dare We Do It Realtime?” – body>data>space collective - live interaction performance with their avatar Orla Ray at Kinetica Art Fair 2009

Diverse Perspectives on the “Avatar” in the Age of Distributed Digital Environments

ANIMATING DIGITAL IDENTITIES

Location

University of Greenwich, 10 Stockwell St,

London SE10 9BD

Lecture Theatre/11_0003

Reserve a spot

Date

17/06/2025

9:30 - 19:30

“Dare We Do It Realtime?” – body>data>space collective - live interaction performance with their avatar Orla Ray at Kinetica Art Fair 2009

ADI

Curated by Nicola Bozzi, Ghislaine Boddington, Tatiana Isaeva and Olive Gingrich.

Supported by the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments, School of Design, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Greenwich, in collaboration with the Hybrid Presence Research Cluster. This event is supported as the Annual Symposium of the Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies.

Date

17/06/2025

9:30 - 19:30

Location

University of Greenwich, 10 Stockwell St,

London SE10 9BD

Lecture Theatre - 11_0003

School of Design and Creative Industries

Reserve a spot

A Symposium curated by Nicola Bozzi, Ghislaine Boddington, Tatiana Isaeva and Oliver Gingrich. Supported by the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments, School of Design, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Greenwich, in collaboration with the Hybrid Presence Research Cluster. This event is supported as the Annual Symposium of the Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies.

Digital identity has gained unprecedented cultural and social momentum in the last decade - both as an individual concern and far-reaching asset. From video game avatars to political campaign videos, from family WhatsApp groups to virtual health assistants - in our digital everyday life, the expression and performance of a wider and increasingly accessible range of digital selves and bodies has become commonplace in large parts of the world. This has been amplified and complicated by the accelerating pace of technical innovation across mediated environments - i.e metaverse platforms, AR, XR, generative AI, all linked to increasingly hyper-targeted recommendation algorithms. At the same time, the cost and speed of data in developing (low and middle-income) countries remains a sometimes-existential factor, making sustainability an issue for these evolutions.

- What implications do these omnipresent platforms for representation have in terms of inclusion, well-being, and overall social good?

- What kinds of new practices of the “avatar” are emerging, between gaming

platforms, social media, and the many metaverses inhabited by our distributed digital bodies?

We need interdisciplinary discussions, not only about the societal repercussions of these technologies, but the opportunities they expand for the creative renegotiation of our relationship with technology, the self, and each other.

For this reason, this event approaches digital identity as a prism through which the social and the cultural are refracted, inviting diverse perspectives to examine theories and practices of the “avatar” in the age of distributed digital environments.

BA (Hons) Animation Student Showcase

Alternative Realities Illustrated

VISIT

Digital identity has gained unprecedented cultural and social momentum in the last decade - both as an individual concern and far-reaching asset. From video game avatars to political campaign videos, from family WhatsApp groups to virtual health assistants - in our digital everyday life, the expression and performance of a wider and increasingly accessible range of digital selves and bodies has become commonplace in large parts of the world. This has been amplified and complicated by the accelerating pace of technical innovation across mediated environments - i.e metaverse platforms, AR, XR, generative AI, all linked to increasingly hyper-targeted recommendation algorithms. At the same time, the cost and speed of data in developing (low and middle-income) countries remains a sometimes-existential factor, making sustainability an issue for these evolutions.

- What implications do these omnipresent platforms for representation have in

terms of inclusion, well-being, and overall social good?

- What kinds of new practices of the “avatar” are emerging, between gaming

platforms, social media, and the many metaverses inhabited by our distributed

digital bodies?

We need interdisciplinary discussions, not only about the societal repercussions of these technologies, but the opportunities they expand for the creative renegotiation of our relationship with technology, the self, and each other.

For this reason, this event approaches digital identity as a prism through which the social and the cultural are refracted, inviting diverse perspectives to examine theories and practices of the “avatar” in the age of distributed digital environments.

PROGRAMME FOR THE DAY

9:30 - 10:00

Registration

10:00 - 10:30

OPENING REMARKS

by the curators Nicola Bozzi, Ghislaine Boddington, Tatiana Isaeva and Oliver Gingrich

10:30 - 12:00

Panel 1

Animating Platformed Identities

Chair – Jane Frances Dunlop

Presenters - Alexandra(Sasha) Anikina, Aleena Chia, Nina Davies and Nicola Bozzi

How are avatars and digital identities becoming a global political-economic asset? This panel explores different theoretical and artistic ways in which gaming technologies and social media affect the expression of identity and how digital identity itself shifts from individual bodies/characters towards distributed commodities and communities.

12:00 - 12:30

BREAK

12:30 - 14:00

Panel 2

Animating Avatars for Social Good

Chairs - Ghislaine Boddington and Oliver Gingrich

Presenters - Olive Gingrich, Sarah Ticho, Camille Baker and Ghislaine Boddington

How are animated digital identities, increasingly connected to real-time data, pushing forward connected access to our individual and group social needs as living beings? This panel focuses on a diverse range of digital bodies working across time and space, rapidly evolving and being adopted in a range of social need sectors, for example education, health, social connectivity and wellbeing.

14:00 - 15:00

LUNCH and EXHIBITION

15:00 - 16:00

Round Tables

Animated Futures

Mediators - Eric Wong, Ryan Flynn, J.C. Kristensen, Ghislaine Boddington

rotating discussion around the themes:

Identity/Representation,
Technologies/Infrastructures,
Posthuman Creativity
Digital Human Twins: Our Future Data Selves

16:00 - 16:30

TEA BREAK

16:30 - 17:00

Sharings from Round Tables

17:00 - 17:45

Conversations

Digital Spaces & Digital Bodies

With Dian Joy, Tatiana Isaeva, Ghislaine Boddington

17:45 - 18:00

Conclusions

18:00 - 19:30

Reception and Networking

Supported by the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments, School of Design, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Greenwich, in collaboration with the Hybrid Presence Research Cluster. This event is supported as the Annual Symposium of the Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies.