The Metaverse: What, How, Why, and When with Michael Naimark

https://baychi.org/calendar/20240109/

Ever since Neal Stephenson coined the term “Metaverse” in his influential 1992 novel “Snow Crash,” the word has been stretched to encompass all manners of shared virtual worlds. And with the recent business focus, the search for meaning behind this term has reached epic proportion. Rather than trying to project it down, Michael will blow it open to expose the many evolving sides of the Metaverse from different angles. Things are most exciting before we really know what they are, and this is such a moment. We’ll attempt to cover various components of what we see as the “Metaverse,” tracing it from its inception and prior incarnations, exploring its exciting intersection with the Internet of Things, and looking at its future.

Michael Naimark has been part of starting many new media labs. These include Google’s VR division, the Apple Multimedia Lab, Paul Allen’s Interval Research, Lucasfilm’s interactive division, and Atari Research. He also help develop NYU Shanghai’s Interactive Media Arts program, USC Cinema’s Interactive Media and Games Division, and the MIT Media Lab.

Michael’s name appears on the Wikipedia pages for Virtual Reality, Projection Mapping, New Media Artists, Interactive Artists, Cinematographers from the United States, and The Hackers Conference. He’s listed as inventor on sixteen patents and has authored over 100 publications.

He has given presentations in over 20 countries and at such venues as SIGGRAPH, the Aspen Design Conference, and the National Museum of Singapore. And he has shown in art exhibitions around the world. His works are in permanent collections at museums.

Michael spent four years at NYU Shanghai, where he developed a VR/AR curriculum and directed research into glasses-free 3D tele-immersion. For inquiries, see this Google Doc: tinyurl.com/michaelnaimark