The future is no longer painted as a hi-tech urban jungle inhabited by cyborgs and robots brandishing their laser blasters. The future is in the social networks and digital platforms, mediating all aspects of life. Though this scheme seems familiar and routine, it leaves us with many disturbing questions. What is going to happen to society when the social center of gravity transfers completely to the online mode? What is going to happen to the body? How do we distinguish being from communicating and labor from leisure in cyberspace?
We could examine it using the framework of video art and games. These new media explore boundaries between corporeality and digital imagery, and the game space becomes transformational: in it, the present is re-evaluated and the detailed models of the future are designed. Our round-table discussion will unite specialists in media history, semiotics of contemporary art, game studies, digital art and design — our goal will be to rethink perspectives of the online-based condition humaine.
