Emerging Technology and Ethics
DIALOGUES IN ART: EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS
April 19, 2024
Technology is woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. We reside comfortably through conditioning, fix our bodies through medicine, and share our imaginations through copper. While inventions and innovations tend to bring net benefits, technological advances that outpace our ability to react to unknown ethical concerns have become ever more commonplace. It is becoming clear that more proactive measures are necessary to identify and prevent unintended consequences of these newfound tools. In this chapter of Dialogues in Art, the panelists - Veena Somareddy, Ed Lima, Benjamin Wagley, and Leah Bethemie Brigham, explore emerging technological innovations relevant to the fields of interactivity, art, and physical rehabilitation.
SPEAKER BIOS
Veena Somareddy is the CEO of Neuro Rehab VR, a VR healthcare start-up aimed at building virtual reality therapy exercises for rehabilitation. Her accolades include being recognized as a Top Innovator in North Texas, Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas honoree, and featured in Forbes and Cosmopolitan. She is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant and one of the 10 start-ups chosen to participate in the first Amazon Healthcare Accelerator. Using her many years of research and development experience in VR and AR, she is helping to connect technology and healthcare to enhance patient care and rehabilitation outcomes greatly.
Ed Lima is a Los Angeles based BAFTA nominated composer who has enjoyed 23 years in the film and videogame industries. After attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Ed went on to work on such videogame projects as Borderlands, Brother's in Arms: Hell's Highway, Doom3, 007 Nightfire and Empire Earth, among others. His film scores include The Black String, Is You Is, Downward Hiro, Lafayette (winner of Best Music at the 2018 Albuquerque Film Festival), Reservations for Three, The Betty, The Dread Factory and DIN. Ed enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience of the craft of film and game scoring with young minds as a featured speaker at schools such as USC, University of North Texas, DeVry University, and at professional industry events such as the Game Developers Conference and at meetings of the International Game Developers Association.
Benjamin Wagley is a veteran professional in animation, 3D modeling, and game design with almost two decades of experience. He has contributed to the development of notable titles such as "7 Days to Die," "Borderlands 1 and 2,” "Duke Nukem Forever," “Xenostar Alpha,” and the film "Altered" to name a few. As CEO of Nijobe Softworks, Benjamin strives to not only oversee creative video game titles but has also to pave the way for young aspiring video game creators. In 2019, he accepted a senior lecturer position at UTA, where he currently teaches and mentors digital artists, helping to prepare them for careers in the industry.
Leah Bethemie Brigham has a degree in Art Education from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and has been teaching art to inner city middle school students in Houston and later Dallas. Leah has shared with her students her passion for art and nature. Those passions have sustained her and continued throughout her life in the form of painting and drawing. Leah was introduced to American Field Horseback Field Trails and has been able to experience the excitement of seeing her own dog, competing for the National Championship at Ames Plantation in Grand Junction, Tennessee ...standing on point, head and tail held high. This has inspired her to create works of art depicting dogs, and the wildlife associated with sport and hunting.
Moderated by Joshua Wilson, Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at UTA Art and Art History Department.