3EALITY Sessions feature talks by innovators and creatives sharing transformative ideas in shaping the next generation of the Internet. In this first edition, Professor Ian Biscoe (Design Academy Eindhoven) takes the stage to discuss Metaverse myths, challenges, and opportunities, while reflecting on his journey working with new technologies, in industry, arts practice, education, and research.

About the talk

From 1992’s The Lawnmower Man through 2018’s Ready Payer One, we have the media’s viewpoint on where XR (formerly, just plain old “VR”) is taking humanity. The industry continues its quest (pun, likely intended) for the perfect headset but we’re not quite there yet. Maybe, the fixation with head-mounted devices is distracting many from the shorter-term opportunities for spatially aware services that execute on tightly integrated low-latency networks and computing environments?

Significant opportunities for high-fidelity Networked XR applications (Metaverse, Intraverses, call them what you will) are apparent: the required technologies are in place at workable costs, or at least tantalizingly close. But what about the realities of network latency, designing applications for distributed spatial environments, and integrating appropriate system of systems solutions that provide seamless, networked, collaborative spatial experiences?

Ian will discuss these themes while reflecting on his journey working with new technologies, in industry, arts practice, education, and research. From his first view into a table-top retinal projection device, and an abortive attempt to launch the world’s first massively multiplayer location-based AR games company, through to current research around Networked XR in his Trans Realities Lab at Design Academy Eindhoven. He will present his thoughts on the next steps for such immersive collaborative environments, and the role they could play in tackling societal challenges.

Ian Biscoe

A serial technology entrepreneur with start-up experience in Europe and the U.S., Ian’s activities have crossed aerospace, process control, entertainment, and architecture. He is currently Professor Transdisciplinary Design Networks at Design Academy Eindhoven, where his Trans Realities Lab is investigating applications of real-time collaborative Networked XR in education, design, and research.

Through his arts practice, Studio Biscoe, Ian fuses approaches from many fields of technology, performing, and visual arts, to create networked performances, such as Bridge To Everywhere between Havana, Cuba, and Miami with the New World Symphony in 2016; and 2019’s A Short Journey into Folded Space between the Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona and Birmingham, England. His latest artistic projects (such as at Eindhoven’s Glow Festival, and at Immersive Tech Week, Rotterdam, both in 2023) explore the use of XR-mediated environments within live performance.