Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) promises to put ‘the viewer’ in someone else’s body or mind. As an ‘embodiment system’ IVR might be said to be the only alternative method of communication that has the potential to effectively generate new levels of empathy.

As artificial limbs and assistive devices become increasingly sophisticated they have evolved from symbols of loss into desirable design objects - and even a state of 'Prosthetic Envy', the condition under which someone might claim to be willing to remove a perfectly healthy limb in order to replace it with a bionic or machinic equivalent.

Life is being altered and designed by artists, scientists and technologists. Through applying engineering principles to living systems, biology has become a new material for creativity. But these practices and manipulations now challenge our cultural understanding of life and what it means to be alive.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) can alter our state of consciousness. At least this is the promise of cyberdelics that use external tech-mediated stimulation to evoke out of body experiences and trips. Although the field has been developing over the last 50 years, the recent proliferation of commercial VR and AR devices has driven new attempts to collide psychedelic and consciousness culture of the late-60s with the computer cultures of the 80s and 90s.

Virtual Futures (curated in partnership with NERRI) brings together representatives from the three spheres where brain stimulation operates – clinical research, consumer products and DIY brain-hacking.

As humanoid sex robots become more widespread how do we develop an engaged ethical response to these new technologies? What software and hardware developments might lead to the development of these sorts of machines? What is the impact of anthropomorphizing machine-substitutes for human partners or prostituted persons? How might the line between fantasy and reality become blurred?

Have you ever considered what the possibilities are for the human species over the next 50 years and beyond? Exploring the latest innovations in 3D printed robotic limbs, memory-enhancing neural implants, lab-grown organs, gene therapies that slow ageing, synthetic biology, medical technology and artificial intelligence.

Virtual Futures presents Christoph Fringeli (Praxis Records, Datacide), Tony Marcus (i-D.) and Dan O’Hara (Philosopher of Technology) who reunite for the first time in over 18 years to contextualise their VF 1995 panel.