The Future Started 10 Minutes Ago and You Are Already Late To the Party!

  I have teamed up with my USC Cinema School Colleagues  Scott Fisher and Howard Rodman to organize a special day-long salute to the legacy of the cyberpunk movement, which is being sponsored by the USC Visions and Voices Program, with help from the Annenberg Innovation Lab's Geek Speaks series.

We are lucky enough to be able to pull together an astonishing mix of key science fiction authors (including Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, and Nalo Hopkinson, with key creative artists from the realm of television (Wild Palm's Roger Triling), comics  (Black Kirby Project's John Jennings and Stacey Robinson), Games (Prince of Persia's Jordan Mechner), films (Sleep Dealers' Alex Riveria), robotics/street theater (Mark Pauline from the Survival Research Lab), and audio (YACHT's Claire L. Evans, who is also editor of Terraform).

Steve Anderson has curated a video extravaganza showing how cyberpunk media has dealt with immersive technologies; we are also holding workshops where Jeff Watson and Geoffrey Long help coordinate the collective design of a future society.

If you live in the LA area (or can get here by the futuristic transportation system of your choice), you will not want to miss this, but be sure to register first since seats are limited. Priority on registration is given to USC affiliated folks but there are some general admission tickets available.

Why? Because the street finds its own uses for things. Because the future is already here and is just unequally distributed. Because mind, body, and machine are one.  In short, because cyberpunk gave us a new way to see the changes that were taking place in the world around us (and under our own skins).