Objectives

The Augmented Society Network facilitates a dynamic intersection between people, technology, and creativity, providing an ideal platform to examine and interrogate the complexities of our rapidly evolving world. The interplay of diverse influences and a perpetually changing technological landscape guides us along various, at times contradictory and controversial trajectories. Join the Augmented Society Network to lift the lid on some of this century's most important societal issues.

 This network explores concepts, creative experiences, and the evolution of new technologies to understand how they influence societal transformations. As individuals and interconnected networks, we possess the potential to significantly influence society's interaction with our current and future environments. Developed as an inclusive and open network for connection, exploration, and problem-solving, the network's monthly virtual sessions have addressed topics including creativity, artificial intelligence, climate change, and the future of education. Additionally, the network has generated a variety of publications, events, and exhibitions.

We welcome all members of society and are eager to make room at the table for provocative and enlightening discussions about what truly matters in our ever-changing world.

  • To create an inspiring and safe place for collaborators, practitioners, and thinkers to explore the impact and development of new technologies. 
  • To generate real and virtual connectedness, and inspire others. 
  • To promote creativity as a universal element for enriching life experience. 
  • To reflect the RSA's mission and strategic work to extend its influence and presence globally. 
  • The Augmented Society Network @ The RSA  

Zoë Camper FRSA - Network lead and founding member

Zoë Camper is a practicing artist and technologist. She is CEO of Zoë Camper LLC, an RSA Fellow, and Co-Founder of the Augmented Society Network. She is a London native based in Fabulous Las Vegas.

Zoë works at the intersection of art and technology, her creative practice combines labor-intensive, highly detailed drawings with technology to explore storytelling, pattern making and cryptography.

She combines technologies to experiment with encryption, and the process required to encrypt, obscure, hide, and reveal messages in her work.  Using XR and other digital tools to both produce, and influence her work, has enabled her to push the boundaries of both analog, and digital formats. She also uses encryption to ensure provenance, and proof of authenticity, using the same decentralized encryption techniques as blockchain and NFT’s. Zoë launched The ValleRy in June 2024, a VR hybrid gallery that uses IRL portals to anchor it into the real world. The ValleRy showcases Zoë’s work, Las Vegas, and international artists. She has exhibited in the UK and USA and has spoken at many conferences around the world, and led the team that created the UK’s first IBM Watson AI virtual health companion.

Her intellectual work explores creativity, privacy, kinship, and trust in all its forms. The Augmented Society Network (An RSA Thematic Network) creates an inspiring, and safe place for collaborators and thinkers to explore the impact of augmentative technology on society and the environment. It has produced experimental exhibitions, and publications combining unlikely, or disruptive sources to push creativity’s boundaries, and generate exciting thinking, and new partnerships. 

Zoe taught Design Principles, Convergent Journalism, and Advance Coding at the BBC Academy, holds a Post Graduate Cert of Education and Hons Degree in 3D Design.

 Contact Zoë

Julie Samuels FRSA - Network lead 

 

Julie Samuels has extensive experience lecturing and leading degree courses in digital media as well as corporate training for FDM Group Plc., and the BBC Academy. She holds a BA Hons in Visual and Performing Art, an MA in Fine Art, a Post Graduate Diploma in European Digital Media, a Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, and a Master of Philosophy research degree. She has presented her research at conferences in the UK and internationally. Julie is the author of Adoption in the Digital Age: Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century. Her primary research interest is within the field of social sciences, examining the transformation of the field of adoption due to the Internet. Other research interests include digital art, narrative/oral storytelling, neurodiversity, and AI. Julie is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lincoln, International Business, UK. Contact Julie