talk to me

ABOUT THE EPISODE
Thanks for joining us for another SIGGRAPH Spotlight! In this episode, SIGGRAPH 2021 Retrospective Chair Andres Burbano (associate professor, Universidad de los Andes) sits down with computer graphics industry icon Alvy Ray Smith. Here, Alvy discusses his rich history with computer graphics and takes a deep dive into the three parts of his upcoming book, “A Biography of the Pixel.” Finally, Andres and Alvy share hints about the Retrospective program at SIGGRAPH 2021. 

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MUSIC 
Podcast theme, "SIGGRAPH," composed by Julius Dobos. 

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LINKS
*Episode*
http://alvyray.com/ | https://s2021.siggraph.org/ | https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/biography-pixel 

*Social Media*
http://blog.siggraph.org/ | https://www.facebook.com/SIGGRAPHConferences | https://twitter.com/siggraph | https://www.youtube.com/user/ACMSIGGRAPH | https://www.instagram.com/acmsiggraph/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/acm-siggraph/  

*Conference Website*
https://s2021.siggraph.org/

SIGGRAPH Spotlight

44 – A Conversation With Alvy Ray Smith

The conflict between Israel and Palestine can often seem like a permanent feature of the global order. The wars, intifadas, refugees camps, suicide vests, UN resolutions, and peace talks have been painfully burned into our collective consciousness. But how could this have happened? Was it always this way? That’s what we’ll seek to find out in this three-part series on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Episode #1, nations are rallying to throw off the yoke of the Great Powers, and demanding the sovereign right to rule their homelands. A group calling themselves Zionists puts out a call to awaken the oppressed Jews of Europe from their thousand-year slumber. The time had come, after two thousand years of homeless wandering, to return to Palestine, the land longed for in so many psalms and lamentations. But there was a problem. While the Jews were in exile, another people had moved into the land, and they had been living there for 1300 years.

Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem

Algorithms can compose music, write poetry and generate art. Artificial intelligence wins literature contests and has work exhibited in galleries, but experts contend we’ve only scratched the surface of what is possible. Aleksandra Przegalińska is an academic, working in the field of AI philosophy, affective data and machine learning. She explores the question of how AI can accelerate the human potential for producing art. In conversation with Ewa Drygalska.

Unsound Talk 01: Non-Human Aesthetics - Rethinking Creativity in the Age of AI

'A dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing book. I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world. A remarkable work by a remarkable writer’ Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland

The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.

Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.

These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web’, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.

Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.

'One of those rare books that can truly change the way you see the world around you. Astounding' Helen MacDonald, author of H Is for Hawk

Entangled Life - written and read by Merlin Sheldrake

ABRIDGED BY ISOBEL CREED AND JILL WATERS | PRODUCED BY LIZZIE DAVIES AND THE WATERS COMPANY FOR BBC RADIO 4, FIRST BROADCAST NOVEMBER 2020 | MUSIC: ISLANDS BY COSMO SHELDRAKE

Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem

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