What brings hybridization about? Hybrid creations and creatures emerge from recombinations. The smaller, the more flexible the unit, the greater the number of recombinations. Hence the principal drivers of hybridity are the gene, the atom and the bit. Language itself is a product and a generator of hybridization. Like migration and crossbreeding, languages drive hybridization because they bring together common features from otherwise unrelated entities. As more and more objects are made available in digital form, invention rises evermore from sampling and mixing, leading to a generalized digital/material bricolage.

10:30 - 10:55 Derrick de Kerckhove (CA)
Head of the Marshall McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto since 1983; author of “The Skin of Culture”, “Brainframes: Technology, Mind and Business”, “The Architecture of Intelligence”; advisor to governments, major corporations and cultural initiatives

10:55 - 11:20 Roger Clarke (AU)
consultant specialized in eBusiness, information infrastructure, data surveillance and information privacy

11:20 - 11:45 Wen-Jean Hsueh (ROC)
General Director of the Creativity Laboratory of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)—Taiwan

11:45 - 12:00 Break

12:00 - 12:25 Neil Gershenfeld (US)
Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. His unique laboratory investigates the relationship between the content of information and its physical representation, from molecular quantum computers to virtuosic musical instruments. Technology from his lab has been seen and used in settings including New York's Museum of Modern Art and rural Indian villages, the White House/Smithsonian Millennium celebration and automobile safety systems, the World Economic Forum and inner-city community centers, Las Vegas shows and Sami reindeer herds. He is the author of numerous technical publications, patents, and books.

12:25 - 12:45 David Weinberger (US)
founder of the strategic marketing company “Evident Marketing”; he joined “Open Text”; consultant for industry and company boards, author, co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, since 2004 Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute for Internet & Society

12:45 - 13:30 Discussion

Moderator: Derrick de Kerckhove (CA)

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