Abba and Tupac in the metaverse:how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring

It was a technological feat that made history, wowed audiences and brought a dead rapper back to life. In April 2012 at the Coachella festival in California, Tupac Shakur took to the stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. He’d been dead for 16 years, killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas

Integrating UDL and AI:a reflexive account of the Digital Maieutic Project team

This paper critically examines the application of reflexivity in the development and early implementation of the Digital Maieutic Project, an initiative that integrates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles with artificial intelligence (AI) to create adaptive and inclusive educational environments. The key to this project is ‘Socrates’, an AI chatbot designed to embody dialogic learning through the Socratic method and to apply the UDL principles of multiple means of representation, engagement and action/ expression. The project team adopted a reflexive approach, drawing on Bell and Willmott’s (2020) model of constitutive, epistemic and disruptive reflexivity to navigate ethical considerations, power dynamics and interdisciplinary challenges. Through reflective dialogue, the team addressed tensions inherent in integrating AI within UDL frameworks such as technological constraints in delivering multimodal content, ethical dilemmas regarding student autonomy and the need for cultural relevance in AI interactions. Early feedback shows that ‘Socrates’ fosters student engagement and improves administrative efficiency, yet critical questions remain about defining and measuring success in AI-mediated education. This paper contributes to the broader discourse on the sociomaterial dynamics of AI in higher education by positioning reflexivity as a critical framework for iterative learning and ethical accountability

Metaverse events:hyperreal performativity of the synthetic self

This paper argues that, in an age of acceleration where digital and social mediation is a given, events and the event experience are undergoing a radical transformation. Emerging DARQ* technologies and an accelerating Metaverse are reshaping the event landscape, birthing a new era of extended reality events (XREvents). Drawing upon a Future Studies poststructuralist position, with an auto-ethnographic and virtual reality methodology (Kozinets, 2023) we propose that the accelerating Metaverse represents the emergence of a new fifth space of XREvents (Frew, Tzanidis &amp; Flinn, 2023). This virtual domain fundamentally challenges the primacy of live events, revealing the constructed nature of real experiences within the intensifying hyperreality we inhabit.Our analysis sheds light on how the once seemingly real world of events, and the selves within them, have always been entangled in a web of digital and social mediation. Events have become potent expressions of hyperreality where the self is caught in a vortex of mediation; an omnipresent global gaze that perpetually mirrors the self, and the event experience, back becoming a self-legitimising performative construct. However, the Metaverse promises unimaginable freedom where the self, unfettered by the laws of physics, biology or morals of the physical ‘real world’, is cloned into a synthetic self that can engage in new worlds of experience (Ball, 2022).In XREvents, the synthetic self can become whatever, go wherever, create, consume and relive endless ecosystems of event experiences. Nevertheless, the speed, scale and scope of DARQ technologies points to a trajectory where the rich detail and sensory saturation are so deep that XREvents become the ultimate hyperreal Spectacle (Hardawar, 2021; Frew, 2013). The promise of XREvents can become a prison where the synthetic self will be perpetually profiled, AI data scanned and scrapped into a new cyber-performativity. Therefore, while we argue that the rise of XREvents challenges appeals to authentic or ‘real’ events, we acknowledge a future DARQ Metaverse may well become a cyber-performative construct. Of course, there is always the possibility that we will see resistance to the seductive dreamscape of XREvents. However, as resistance is reappropriated or creativity assimilated the hyperreal Spectacle is, ironically, really all there is.<br/

Integrating UDL and AI:a reflexive account of the Digital Maieutic Project team

This paper critically examines the application of reflexivity in the development and early implementation of the Digital Maieutic Project, an initiative that integrates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles with artificial intelligence (AI) to create adaptive and inclusive educational environments. The key to this project is ‘Socrates’, an AI chatbot designed to embody dialogic learning through the Socratic method and to apply the UDL principles of multiple means of representation, engagement and action/ expression. The project team adopted a reflexive approach, drawing on Bell and Willmott’s (2020) model of constitutive, epistemic and disruptive reflexivity to navigate ethical considerations, power dynamics and interdisciplinary challenges. Through reflective dialogue, the team addressed tensions inherent in integrating AI within UDL frameworks such as technological constraints in delivering multimodal content, ethical dilemmas regarding student autonomy and the need for cultural relevance in AI interactions. Early feedback shows that ‘Socrates’ fosters student engagement and improves administrative efficiency, yet critical questions remain about defining and measuring success in AI-mediated education. This paper contributes to the broader discourse on the sociomaterial dynamics of AI in higher education by positioning reflexivity as a critical framework for iterative learning and ethical accountability

Metaverse events:hyperreal performativity of the synthetic self

This paper argues that, in an age of acceleration where digital and social mediation is a given, events and the event experience are undergoing a radical transformation. Emerging DARQ* technologies and an accelerating Metaverse are reshaping the event landscape, birthing a new era of extended reality events (XREvents). Drawing upon a Future Studies poststructuralist position, with an auto-ethnographic and virtual reality methodology (Kozinets, 2023) we propose that the accelerating Metaverse represents the emergence of a new fifth space of XREvents (Frew, Tzanidis &amp; Flinn, 2023). This virtual domain fundamentally challenges the primacy of live events, revealing the constructed nature of real experiences within the intensifying hyperreality we inhabit.Our analysis sheds light on how the once seemingly real world of events, and the selves within them, have always been entangled in a web of digital and social mediation. Events have become potent expressions of hyperreality where the self is caught in a vortex of mediation; an omnipresent global gaze that perpetually mirrors the self, and the event experience, back becoming a self-legitimising performative construct. However, the Metaverse promises unimaginable freedom where the self, unfettered by the laws of physics, biology or morals of the physical ‘real world’, is cloned into a synthetic self that can engage in new worlds of experience (Ball, 2022).In XREvents, the synthetic self can become whatever, go wherever, create, consume and relive endless ecosystems of event experiences. Nevertheless, the speed, scale and scope of DARQ technologies points to a trajectory where the rich detail and sensory saturation are so deep that XREvents become the ultimate hyperreal Spectacle (Hardawar, 2021; Frew, 2013). The promise of XREvents can become a prison where the synthetic self will be perpetually profiled, AI data scanned and scrapped into a new cyber-performativity. Therefore, while we argue that the rise of XREvents challenges appeals to authentic or ‘real’ events, we acknowledge a future DARQ Metaverse may well become a cyber-performative construct. Of course, there is always the possibility that we will see resistance to the seductive dreamscape of XREvents. However, as resistance is reappropriated or creativity assimilated the hyperreal Spectacle is, ironically, really all there is.<br/

Guardrails for the future:how digital humanism guides responsible technological convergence

Through the lens of Digital Humanism and technological singularity, the study critically examines the role of dynamic capabilities (DCs) of Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) and their influence on triggering digitalisation and accelerating technological convergence through clients and employees. This is evaluated by employing a single case study approach of a multi-award-winning technology solution company, namely Kubenet, based in Scotland. Their partners are Cisco and Microsoft to guarantee global access to clients’ applications. They own the ‘next generation network’ which allows flexibility, safety, and resilience supported by ISO, ITiL and Cyber Essentials accreditations. The analysis of the Kubenet has allowed us to notice that CDOs assume a relevant role in disseminating the principle of digital humanism which even if the technologies are completely in the organizational settings, human skills still have a central role in the whole organizational life. Creativity and innovation cannot be replaced by technologies which denote an integration of digital humanism accompanied by technology singularity

Guardrails for the future:how digital humanism guides responsible technological convergence

Through the lens of Digital Humanism and technological singularity, the study critically examines the role of dynamic capabilities (DCs) of Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) and their influence on triggering digitalisation and accelerating technological convergence through clients and employees. This is evaluated by employing a single case study approach of a multi-award-winning technology solution company, namely Kubenet, based in Scotland. Their partners are Cisco and Microsoft to guarantee global access to clients’ applications. They own the ‘next generation network’ which allows flexibility, safety, and resilience supported by ISO, ITiL and Cyber Essentials accreditations. The analysis of the Kubenet has allowed us to notice that CDOs assume a relevant role in disseminating the principle of digital humanism which even if the technologies are completely in the organizational settings, human skills still have a central role in the whole organizational life. Creativity and innovation cannot be replaced by technologies which denote an integration of digital humanism accompanied by technology singularity