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The MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality (MIT Virtuality for short) pioneers innovative experiences using technologies of virtuality — computing systems that construct imaginative experiences atop our physical world. Our approach to engineering and creative practices pushes the expressive potential of technologies of virtuality and simulates social and cognitive phenomena, while intrinsically considering their social and cultural impacts. This talk focuses on an important aspect of such technologies: virtual selves. Indeed nearly early everyone these days uses virtual identities, ranging from accounts for social media and online shopping to avatars in videogames or virtual reality. Given the widespread and growing use of such technologies, it is important to better understand their impacts and to establish innovative and best practices. In this talk, Harrell explores how our social identities are complicated by their intersection with extended reality technologies, videogames, social media, and related digital media forms. With an emphasis on equity, Harrell will explore how virtual identities both implement and transform persistent issues of class, gender, sex, race, ethnicity, and the dynamically construction social categories more generally.
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