On digital avatars and wooden spoons

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This article was published 24/04/2018 (2698 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A couple of locals are preparing for their time in the spotlight.

TEDxWinnipeg has announced their speakers for this year’s event, which takes place on June 13 at the RBC Convention Centre. Wolseley resident John Luxford and West End resident Amy Krahn will both be presenting on topics that are part work and part passion.

Luxford is co-founder and chief technology officer at flipside, also known as Campfire Union. The company creates digital avatars for its users, which Luxford sees as the beginning of a shift in how we use technology—he expects that avatars, virtual and augmented reality will continue to play a larger role in our daily lives.

“I’ll be talking about how… virtual avatars, like digital representations of ourselves, are going to transform how we think of our identity. They’ll become part of it, and that will evolve,” Luxford said.

He says that even as a kid, Luxford had conflicted feelings about what he saw in the mirror, and he guesses he’s not alone in that.

“As I started to work with virtual avatars, I started to go, wait a minute, I can be anything. I can look however I want, and that doesn’t have to be human necessarily,” he said. “That’s kind of this empowering thing.”

He says technology can be good and bad, but overall he sees avatars as an opportunity for creativity.

“Instead of it being this thing that makes us less because we’re an avatar and not there, I think people who have identity issues or feel more comfortable that way or want to express something about themselves… have the means to do it beyond a haircut or shirt.”

Krahn will be talking about wooden spoons, a topic which emerged out of her work as a furniture maker. She often attends markets with her company, Bow and Arrow Furniture, where she sells smaller, more “accessible pieces.”

“I’ll talk about the history of the wooden spoon, how far back they were found and sort of my call to action is not specifically about wooden spoons, but more about paying attention to the things you bring into your life and creative value and taking good care of them,” Krahn said.

Krahn says being choosier about items means that you can spend more on them, and a higher price tag associated with locally made goods comes with a guarantee that they were made in a sustainable and ethical way.

“When someone buys a spoon, they can buy something similar from another place but it’s another country and they don’t know how the people were treated, and not that it’s not important to support other countries, it is important to know how they were treated and the people who made the items are as important as the items themselves,” Krahn said.

For more information on TEDxWinnipeg, visit tedxwinnipeg.ca