Gazing into the Metaverse

This Roundtable is organised by the Asia Research Institute (ARI) and engages with the metaverse and the computer-generated worlds that are now in development. The Roundtable will provide a brief introduction to the metaverse, and consider some of the key questions and themes that researchers in the social sciences and humanities are now asking about this next stage in our digital journey. Particular attention will be paid to developments and implications of the metaverse in Asia.

Discussion themes include:

• What versions of Asia – urban, national, civilizational and at other scales – are rising to prominence?

• What narratives of Asian pasts and futures are bound up with embodied experiences of these emergent worlds?

• What present and future collaborative research possibilities does the metaverse open for SSH scholars in Singapore?

Speakers

Prof Tim Winter

Tim is Cluster Leader and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore. He moved to ARI from University of Western of Australia, where he was Professorial Future Fellow of the Australian Research Council.

Dr Natalie Grincheva

Natalia is Program Leader in Arts Management at LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Digital Studio at The University of Melbourne.

Dr Nien Yuan Cheng

Nien Yuan is a Singaporean performance scholar. She is a Faculty Early Career Award Fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. Her work has been published in the Oral History Review, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Performance Paradigm among others.

Asst Prof Chaewon Ahn

Chaewon is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore, who holds a joint appointment with the Urban Studies program at the Yale-NUS College. She is an urban researcher with a special focus on smart city, innovation policy and urban models.