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Biographies
Biographies
Marko Ahtisaari (FI). Recently appointed to be Director of Design Strategy for Nokia. He studied economics, philosophy and musical composition at Columbia University, New York City, where he subsequently lectured in logic, philosophy of economics, and the history of thought. Prior to working at Nokia, he developed mobile applications for major clients at the design consultancy Satama Interactive. Marko continues to make music, and was awarded a Grammy Showcase Award for new artists.
Paola Antonelli (IT/US) joined The Museum of Modern Art in 1994 and is the Acting Chief Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design. Her most recent show was SAFE: Design Takes On Risk, devoted to objects designed to protect the body and the soul, of people worldwide. Paola Antonelli has curated several architecture and design exhibitions in Italy, France, and Japan. She has lectured on design and architecture in Europe and the United States and has served on several international architecture and design juries.
Takafumi Aoki (JP), born in 1983, received the Bachelor of Science at the Department of Information Science of Tokyo Institute of Technology. He was member of Sato & Koike Group, Precision and Intelligence Lab, Tokyo Institute of Technology and he received the GIFU VR Award at the International collegiate Virtual Reality Contest (IVRC) in 2004. His works were presented at Siggraph.
Burak Arikan (US) recently completed his master’s degree in the Physical Language Workshop at the MIT Media Laboratory. While at MIT, he pursued research exploring systems that address the transition from connectivity to collectivity in the context of creative expression. His current work is focused on building platforms for artists and designers that enable collectivity based on composing distributed electronic objects over the Internet. Prior to attending MIT,
he worked as an information architect and visual designer in the United States and Turkey. He received a Master of
Arts degree in Visual Communication Design from Istanbul Bilgi University in 2004, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Yildiz Technical University in 2001.
Charles Armirkhanian (US), born in 1945, is widely known for his live and taped works utilizing speech (or sound poetry) elements in rhythmic patterns resembling percussion music. From 1969 to 1992 he was Music Director of KPFA Radio (Berkeley, CA). From 1993–1997 he was Executive Director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (Woodside, CA). Currently he is the founding Artistic Director of the Other Minds Festival of avant-garde music in San Francisco.
Robert Ashley (US), born in 1930, is known for his work in new forms of opera and multi-disciplinary projects. In the 1960s, Ashley organized Ann Arbor’s legendary ONCE Festival and directed the ONCE Group. During the 1970s, he directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, toured with the Sonic Arts Union, and produced and directed Music with Roots in the Aether, a 14-hour television opera/documentary about the work and ideas of seven American composers. Ashley wrote and produced numerous operas that have toured throughout Europe, Asia and the United States.
Assocreation (AT), established in Vienna in 1997, Assocreation sees itself as an individual whose agents act anonymously. The group confronts the public with the way modern human beings relate both to the space around them and the ground beneath their feet. Their work features a number of body-related projects presented at Ars Electronica, at the Bienal de Valencia, at Jack the Pelican Gallery in Brooklyn, at Kunsthalle Wien-project space, as well as in the streets of New York, Warsaw, Zurich, Copenhagen, Paris and other cities.
Alexander Baratsits, Radio FRO (AT), involved in Community Radio since 1991. 1995 together with Johanna Dorer publication of ”Radiokultur von Morgen”. 1995–2001 Chairperson of the Association of Free Radios Austria. 1997–2002 CEO of Radio FRO, Linz. Concepts, production and publication of various projects in the fields of free media, media art and intercultural art (Festival der Regionen 1999, 2001), Ars Electronica Festival (1995, 1998–2002, 2005).
Aram Bartoll (DE), born in 1972, has lived in Berlin since 1995. He studied architecture at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since his graduation in 2001, he has worked as a free-lance artist; major areas of activity: locative media, game art and screens. He also develops concepts in the fields of interactive media and mobile communications for private-sector and institutional clients.
David Behrman (AT/US), born in 1937, holds degrees from Harvard and Columbia and produced the Music of Our Time series for Columbia Records in the 1960s. He is the co-founder of the Sonic Arts Union and toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the 1970s and 1990s. Behrman served as co-director for the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College (1975–1980), taught at Ohio State University and C.A.L. Arts, and designed children's computer games at Children’s Television Workshop. Many of his sound installations can be played by non-professionals at international museums.
Walter Bender (US) is a senior research scientist and director of the Electronic Publishing group at MIT Medialab; he also directs the Gray Matters special interest group, which focuses on technology’s impact on the aging population. In 1992, Bender founded the News in the Future consortium and has been a member of the Lab’s SIMPLICITY, Things That Think, and Digital Life consortia. Walter Bender is currently president for software and content development of One Laptop per Child, a not-for-profit association that is developing and deploying technologies that will revolutionize how the world’s children engage in learning. Before taking his leave of absence from MIT, Bender was executive director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and holder of the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Chair.
Nicoletta Blacher (AT), born in 1965; studied theater, psychology, philosophy and German language and literature; has worked since 1998 conceiving cultural and artistic projects, in PR and culture management in Vienna, Berlin and Paris, including establishing and directing the Österreichischer Kultur-Service; since 2005, director of the Ars Electronica Center Linz-Museum of the Future.
Wolfgang Blau (DE/US) (aka W. Harrer) is an independent journalist in San Francisco. He writes for ZDF, Deutsche Welle and Technology Review and consults various media companies. In 1999, he initiated Audio-WELT, the first online audio-portal of a European daily newspaper. In 2004, he started the first podcast of a German media company at ZDF and Deutsche Welle.
Gerhard Blechinger (DE/CH), born in 1964, is Vice Rector of the University for Art and Design in Zurich Switzerland (HGKZ), responsible for Research and Development in the field of art, design and media technology. Recent projects include new media formats for 3G handheld devices and mobile security. From 1998 to 2000 he was Vice Director of the Media museum and Director of the Media lab at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1996 he received his PhD in Aesthetics and Theory of Design from the University of Wuppertal, Germany.
Jonathan den Breejen (NL), born in 1974. Lives and works in Enschede. Den Breejen's background lies in the field of the Media Arts and Media Technology. He is currently developing multiple non-luminescent display systems.
Andreas Broeckmann (DE), lives and works in Berlin. From 2000–2006 he has been the artistic director of transmediale-festival for art and digital culture Berlin. Since 2005 he has also been one of three artistic directors of TESLA-Laboratory for Arts and Media in Berlin. Andreas studied art history, sociology, and media studies and is currently organizing “re:place 2007”, The Second International Conference on the History of Media Arts, Sciences and Technologies.
Sheldon Brown (US) is Director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) where he is a Professor of Visual Arts and the head of New Media Arts for the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (Cal-(IT)2). As an artist, he is concerned with overlapping and reconfiguring private and public spaces.
Ludger Brümmer (DE), born in 1958, studied composition with Nicolaus A. Huber and Dirk Reith at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen. He received a scholarship from DAAD to attend the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University in California from 1991–1993. He was Research Fellow at Kingston University London from 2000 and Professor for Composition at the Sonic Art Research Centre in Belfast from 2002. He has headed the Institute for Music and Acoustics at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) Karlsruhe since 2003.
Bill Buxton (CA/UK) is a designer and a researcher concerned with human aspects of technology. His work reflects a particular interest in the use of technology to support creative activities such as design, film making and music. Buxton’s research specialties include technologies, techniques and theories of input to computers, technology mediated human-human collaboration, and ubiquitous computing. From 1994–2002, he was Chief Scientist of Alias|Wavefront,(now part of Autodesk) and from 1995, its parent company SGI Inc. In 2005, he was appointed Principal Researcher of Microsoft Research. Buxton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
Gary Chang (CN), born in 1962, graduated from The University of Hong Kong in 1987 with a degree in Architecture. He founded his company EDGE in 1994. Chang has won many awards in Asia and across the globe for his architectural, interior and product designs. The Suitcase House at the Commune by the Great Wall, Kung-Fu Tea Set for Alessi and Gary’s own Apartment in Hong Kong are the representative projects among his designs. He was among the first group of representatives from Hong Kong to be invited to participate in the International Biennial Exhibition of Architecture, Venice in 2000 and 2002. Chang lectures around the world and has published a series of literary and academic works.
Jenny Chowdhury (US) aka JennyLC, is a new media artist whose work explores the use of cell phones as social props. Typically in humor tinged fashion, her projects call attention to how cell phone technology has altered the ways in which people communicate with each other and their surrounding environment. JennyLC holds a degree in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering and is currently working towards her Masters at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).
Corebounce (CH) Art Collective. The activities of Corebounce Association fall between art and science. It is their goal to consolidate research results in computer science in the creation of new and modern tools for today’s hybrid arts and artists. The initiators and main members of Corebounce Association are Pascal Müller, Dr. Stefan Müller Arisona, Dr. Simon Schubiger Banz, and Matthias Specht. They perform regularly at electronic music events and art festivals nationally and internationally. http://www.corebounce.org
David Cuartielles (ES/SE) is one of the main advocates of Interactive Prototyping, the discipline dealing with the realization of prototypes including technologies that require intentional human action for the performance of tasks. His work has focused in the creation of interactive pieces, but also in the design of tools for others to create interactive pieces.
Philip Dean (FI) graduated from the London School of Printing, London Institute, in 1981 with a degree in Photography, Film and Television. He moved to Finland to pursue postgraduate studies in 1982 at the University of Art and Design, department of Photographic Art. In 1993 Dean was appointed to lead the planning and development of a new department in the University of Art and Design Helsinki, the Media Lab, of which he has been Director for 11 years.
Markus Decker (AT), born in 1972, lives and works in Linz, Austria. He works with all kinds of electronic media, electronic audio-digital and analog.
Marenka Deenstra (NL), born in 1977; lives and works in Utrecht. Marenka studied both Industrial Product Design and Media Technology. She currently works as Product Designer in Utrecht.
Johannes Deutsch (AT), born in 1960, painter and media artist; studied at the Polytechnic College for Graphic Arts in Linz (1975–80) and did postgraduate work at the Institute for New Media at the Städel School in Frankfurt (1990–92); numerous one-man shows including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna (1992), the Bonn Art Museum and the Frankfurt Art Association (both in 1998); participant in exhibitions at the New Berlin Art Association (1994) and the Ludwig Museum in Cologne (1999 and 2000). Among his interactive VR projects are three produced in cooperation with the Ars Electronica Futurelab: Gesichtsraum, Rheingold-Visionized and Vision Mahler.
Gerhard Dirmoser (AT), works in Linz as a systems analyst (spezializing in geographical information systems) and has also been dealing with semantic networks for over 15 years. He has produced studies in network concerned with cybernetic aesthetics, structuralism, French philosophy, art in context, terms of thinking, verbs, atmospheric concepts, design gestures, mapping issues, and the history of Ars Electronica. In collaboration with Josef Lehner, he conceived the SemaNet tool and, together with Grintec, developed the WiLa application module for the depiction of semantic networks.
Jorn Ebner (DE / UK), born in 1966; artist; lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne and Berlin; studied art at Central Saint Martins, London (1995–98) and English literature at the University of Hamburg (1990–95); recipient of the Art Prize of the Medienforum München in 2001 for an Internet project entitled Lee Marvin Toolbox; 2006 exhibitions: “Landschaft (Komponenten),” KX, Hamburg, and ”Ordinary Monuments,” Vane, Newcastle.
Empfangshalle (DE). Empfangshalle (Corbinian Böhm, born1966, and Michael Gruber, born 1965) doesn’t work in hermetic art spaces; instead, it conceives itself as a space in its own right amidst the public sphere, a discrete display that links up with its viewers or overlays them. Infrastructural interventions make invisible or unconscious elements discernible. The definition of Empfangshalle's art is a derivative of its interaction with society. These projects are temporarily, precisely staged events that operate with elements of randomness: garbage men on a trip around the world, church steeples out of water. http://www.Empfangshalle.de
Martin Frey (DE), born in 1978; interaction and interface designer; 2003: awarded polytechnic college diploma in communications design; 2006: graduated cum laude from the Berlin University of the Arts.
John Gerrard (IRL), born 1974, is an artist whose varied works investigates the emotional possibilities of digital technologies, creating works which question our identities, our relations to each other and towards the physical environment. His sculptures frequently hinge on the new temporal and experiential possibilities to be found in real-time 3-D. See http://www.johngerrard.net. In 2004 he completed a long term artists’ residency in the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
Olga Goriunova (USSR/FI), born in 1977, is a new media researcher, organizer, writer, and lecturer. She is a co-maker of the Readme software art festival series (Moscow 2002, Helsinki 2003, Aarhus 2004, Dortmund 2005), editor of related publications, and a co-organizer of Runme.org software art repository. Author of numerous articles on new media art and culture, she has also taught in many educational media institutions in Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and has lectured world-wide. She is currently a Ph.D. researcher in Media Lab, University of Industrial Arts and Design, Helsinki, Finland. http://runme.org
The Graffiti Research Lab (US) is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, street artists, and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from unchecked development and corporate visual culture. During 2006, the G.R.L. toured across the globe demonstrating and teaching new graffiti technologies and DIY skills to diverse public audiences, working with writers and street artists like Mark Jenkins, ABOVE and BORF. Their work has been featured in alternative and mainstream news sources such as the New York Times, Wooster Collective, TIME Magazine, Visual Resistance and The Village Voice.
Sam Hecht / Industrial Facility (UK). Industrial Facility is a design office formed by designer Sam Hecht, and architect Kim Colin in 2002. Industrial Facility has since developed projects for companies such as Epson Japan, Droog, Magis, Panasonic, Harrison Fisher, Whirlpool, KitchenAid and Muji. With Muji, Sam Hecht holds the position of creative adviser for Europe and retained designer for Japan. His belief is in the importance of design as a means of simplifying our lives in an inspirational way. The studio achieves this by following a rigorous path of investigation and analysis, and has been well documented, with over 30 international awards. His work forms part of the permanent collections of the MoMA, New York; The Centre Pompidou, Paris; The State Museum of Applied Arts, Munich; the Museum Für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. www.industrialfacility.co.uk
Andrew Hieronymi (CH/US). His recent work focuses on the boundaries between games and art in physical environments. In 2005 he received an MFA from the Design|Media Arts department at UCLA, Los Angeles. In 1998, Hieronymi received a BFA from École Superieure des Beaux Arts, Geneva. Hieronymi’s work has recently been shown at “Future Play” (Michigan), “Microwavefest” (Hong Kong), “Media_city” (Korea), FILE (Brazil), “Chiangmai” (Thailand), and “CTheory” (New York).
Taylor Hokanson (US), born in 1978, lives and works in Chicago. Hokanson’s work probes the conceptual issues of text and writing through sculpture and installation. Hacked electronics, microprocessor control, and general technophilia characterize his oeuvre. Current research involves computer-controlled fabrication techniques and their effect on authorship, craft, and the value of art. www.taylorhokanson.com
Philipp Hoppe (DE) is a student of architecture at RWTH Aachen, Germany. From 2004 to 2005, he studied philosophy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He did a theoretical project about situationist architecture and is currently working on a project investigating space as an immersive medium that interacts both physically and informationally with its users. Interested in virtual dimensions of urban environments, in 2005 he teamed up with Kai Kasugai to create denCity.net.
Horst Hörtner (AT) studied telematics at the Technical University in Graz. He has worked on developing real-time control systems and on art projects. He is the co-founder of x-space and has worked for the Seville EXPO, documenta IX, austromir and others. Since 1995 he has been directing the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
Rupert Huber (AT), born in 1967, is a composer and a musician. Composing music takes place in time, but also in space. Electronic music allows the composer to combine real spaces, or to create a musical space that is transferred into the
listener’s head. Rupert Huber has received commissions for musical compositions from the Centre Pompidou, Wiener Festwochen and Ars Electronica, and his Tosca project album is available worldwide. He is currently working on music for piano in unusual locations.
Naut Humon (US) is the director of operations for the RECOMBINANT MEDIA LABS, in San Francisco. This network of A/V based actions houses the surround Traffic control Cinesonic system for performance exhibitions and international residencies. He is also producer and curator for the Asphodel label along with his own projects for speaker-screen installations.
HyperWerk (CH) was founded in 1999 at the FHBB Polytechnic College in Basel as a pilot project: a radically experimental, interdisciplinary course of study in the design of interactive forms of education and work. In 2006, it became a department of the Basel University of Art and Design's Institute for Postindustrial Design, where 120 HyperWerkers are BA candidates undertaking joint forays into the gentle art of process design. http://hyperwerk.ch .
1n0ut (Robert Praxmarer, Reinhold Bidner, AT) is an artist collective that works both collaboratively and individually on a variety of video and interactive art projects with a focus on generating synaesthetic experiences. The artists mix analogue and digital processes in their work to achieve a perfect aesthetic blend which can be understood as a reflection upon all of our lives. Cross-disciplinary by nature, their approaches reach from a self programmed real-time video montage system based on Praxmarer’s ongoing PhD work to the charming photo stills and composed video works from Bidner.
Tsuneku Ipp (JP / AT) is a master of the art of origami, which she has practiced in Austria since 1988. Tsuneku Ipp has held numerous origami workshops and spoken extensively on the subject. Her own works have been featured in many exhibitions—for instance, in Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts.
Toshio Iwai (JP), born in 1962. Graduated from the Plastic Art and Mixed Media master's course at the University of Tsukuba. Produced experimental animation as a student, and then moved to creating works with computers. Has presented interactive and other works at numerous museum exhibitions within Japan and abroad. In 1997 won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica for his performance with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Wide-ranging activities include television programs and collaborations with musicians. Recently released Electroplankton for Nintendo DS and is working on TENORI-ON with Yamaha Corp. Currently continues to expand the field of media art expression into public space, game machines, and product development.
Yukie Kamiya (US) is Adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. She has curated exhibitions in North and South America, Europe and Asia, including “Adaptive Behavior” at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004. She has also contributed numerous texts to catalogs and to periodical publications.
Kai Kasugai (DE) studied architecture at RWTH Aachen, Germany and the Edinburgh College of Art, UK. He graduated 2006 in Aachen. During his studies, he worked for various departments, the longest time at the department for Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) where he helped programming the PHP/mySQL-driven student and faculty administration platform. Taking special interest in the intersections between software and architecture, in 2005 he teamed up with Philipp Hoppe to analyze the potentials of virtual social networks within cityscape and urban planning.
Nicole Knauer (DE), born in 1967, studied graphic and communications design in Munich and visual arts in Linz. As a visual artist whose emphasis is on artistic conception, Nicole Knauer works primarily in the field of art and interventions
in public spaces, as well as in video and photography. Another important facet of her work-both as an artist and as a curator-is critically calling into question sociopolitical conditions through participatory approaches that are initiated as multi-layered, interdisciplinary interface projects.
Jason Kottke (US) designs, codes, and writes for the web, with a special interest in clear, simple, user-centered design, microcontent, and the writable web. Jason has maintained the popular and influential weblog kottke.org since March 1998, writing about web technology, photography, media, design, the writable web, and rip/mix/burn culture. He calls New York City home.
Robert Kovács (HU/AT) plays the world-renowned Bruckner Organ at the St. Florian Monastery in Upper Austria and is first organist of the Tonkünstler Orchestra. He began taking piano lessons at the age of five and added the organ to his repertoire at 11. He completed his musical studies at the Budapest Conservatory and won 1st Prize at the Hungarian Festival for Young Organists. At the former Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Kovács studied sacred music and the organ as a concert instrument under Hans Haselböck and Peter Planyavsky. Robert Kovács graduated cum laude and received an award of recognition from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.
Ryoichi Kurokawa (JP), born in 1978. In 1999, started creating video and sound works and presenting audiovisual work, video installation, and screening in various art, music and film festivals. At the same time, started performing audiovisual live and released CDs and DVDs. Also performed live-visual for the group Sketch Show- former YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) members, Haruomi Hosono + Yukihiro Takahashi-at the Sonár Festival, Barcelona and Cybersonica/ICA, London and for Human Audio Sponge (Sketch Show + Ryuichi Sakamoto) at the Sonár 2004 Festival. Kurokawa’s projects and audiovisual concerts have been presented internationally.
Kumiko Kushiyama (JP) is a student of the Japan Electronics College and is currently working together with PRESTO/JST on her new project Thermoesthesia presented at the Ars Electronica Center.
Veronika Leiner, Radio FRO (AT) Studied German and Spanish literature and linguistics in Salzburg, Seville and Dublin. Postgraduate in Cultural and Media Management. Working with Community Radio since 1999, concepts and production of various free media and cultural projects (Festival der Regionen 2003, 2005, Ars Electronica Festival 2004, 2005), 2004–2006 CEO of Radio FRO, the free non-commercial radio station in Linz, Austria and board member of the Association of Free Radios Austria. Now working for the Association of Free Radios Austria.
Golan Levin (US) explores the intersection of abstract communication and interactivity. Through performances, digital artifacts, and virtual environments, often created with a variety of collaborators, Levin applies creative twists to digital technologies that highlight our relationship with machines and make visible our ways of interacting with each other.
M + M (Marc Weis and Martin de Mattía, DE) works in the interstice between visual arts and film. The artistic duo carries out interventions-that occasionally come across as rather bizarre-in network-linked spheres of life such as the telephone system. Their focus is on new cinematic forms of narration. M+M's work has been featured at numerous solo and group exhibitions and screenings including shows at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montreal, the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin, Videonale 10 in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the ZKM in Karlsruhe.
Thomas Macho (AT/DE) is professor of cultural history at Humboldt University in Berlin. His doctoral dissertation written at the University of Vienna in 1976 is entitled Dialectics of Musical Works of Art. His postdoctoral thesis in philosophy entitled On the Metaphors of Death. Phenomenology at the Limits of Experience was written in 1983 in Klagenfurt. Macho is co-founder of the Hermann von Helmhotz Center for Cultural Technology and, since 2006, head of the Department of Philosophy III at Humboldt University in Berlin.
John Maeda (US) is a world-renowned graphic designer, visual artist, and computer scientist at the MIT Media Lab, and is a founding voice for “simplicity” in the digital age. Named by Esquire magazine as one of the 21 most important people for the twenty-first century, Maeda first made his mark by redefining the use of electronic media as a tool of expression for people of all ages and skills. A faculty member at the Media Lab since 1996, Maeda holds the E. Rudge and Nancy Allen Professorship of Media Arts and Sciences, and co-directs the Lab’s design-oriented Physical Language Workshop and its SIMPLICITY consortium. He has had major exhibits of his work in Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo, and has written several books on his philosophy of “humanizing technology” through his perspective on the digital arts. Maeda received both his BS and MS degrees from MIT, and earned his PhD in design from Tsukuba University Institute of Art and Design in Japan. (Copyright 2006, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Maeda)
Philippe Manoury (FR/US), born in 1952, began his musical studies at the age of nine. In 1981 he was invited by the IRCAM to do research. Since then he has consistently participated in the Institute's activities as composer and teacher. In collaboration with the mathematician Miller Puckette he has conducted research involving the interactions in real time between acoustic instruments and the new techniques linked to musical data processing. This work led to an interactive cycle of pieces for various instruments. Since late 2004, Philippe Manoury has been living the United States where he teaches at the University of California at San Diego.
Pascal Maresch (CH/AT) studied journalism, communications and art history at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria. In 1998, he joined the staff of the Futurelab, Ars Electronica's media laboratory. Since 2003, he has been working on setting up the Ars Electronica Futurelab's next focal-point area of research: computer-controlled music visualization.
Sonja Meller (AT), born in 1971, studied sculpture at Linz University of Artistic and Industrial Design, and Interdisciplinary Social Science with a major in contemporary art at San Francisco State University. She has produced numerous art projects in Austria and abroad dealing with spatial, cultural and social facts and circumstances.
Maki Namekawa (JP/AT) is one of the young musicians who are introducing new works by leading composers into the mainstream of German concert activity. As a soloist and a chamber musician equally at home in classical music and contemporary repertoire, Maki Namekawa appears regularly at major concert venues in Japan and Europe, at international festivals (including the Musik-Biennale Berlin, the Festival Eclat in Stuttgart, Ars Electronica Linz, the Rheingau Festival and the Ruhr Piano Festival), on radio broadcasts and with prestigious orchestras such as the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Munich Philharmonic and Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam.
Michael Nyman (UK) musician and composer. In the early ‘60s he had abandoned composition preferring to work as a musicologist; he became the first to apply the word “minimalism” to music. Back to composition he founded the Michael Nyman Band, the laboratory in which Nyman has formulated his compositional style around strong melodies, flexible yet assertive rhythms, and precisely articulated ensemble playing. His music has reached its largest audience by way of his film scores, most famously for Peter Greenaway. Among his last operas count The Commissar Vanishes, based on David King’s book about Stalinist manipulation of photographic documents and the opera Facing Goy (2000), which is a taut thriller taking genetics as its subject matter. Michael’s latest venture is the launch of his own record label—MN Records. The label opened in Spring 2005 with ‘The Piano Sings’ the composer’s debut solo piano album.
Klaus Obermaier (AT) is a media artist, director and composer who lives in Vienna and has been working with video and interactive media since the late 1980s. His intermedial performances, compositions and installations have been shown worldwide. In 2006, he has been a guest professor at the IUAV University in Venice, where he teaches new media in stage performances.
Dietmar Offenhuber (AT) graduated in architecture at the TU Vienna and worked as a key researcher at the Ars Electronica Futurelab. In 2004 he received a Fellowship from the Japan Foundation for the IAMAS Institute. From 2004 to 2006 he was professor for animation and interactive media at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg (AT). From Fall 2006 he is researcher at the MIT Medialab.
Karin Ohlenschläger (DE/ES), is an art critic and curator who specialises in contemporary art and new media. She is co-director of the MediaLabMadrid Program at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid (Spain) and a founding member of the Banquete Foundation. http://www.medialabmadrid.org , http://www.banquete.org
Tsuyoshi Ozawa (JP). His activities are multi-faceted and spread across various domains, culturally and geographically. It’s a constantly opening and shifting world. It is, however, also a world in itself. In Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s work, one can never ignore an immensely important aspect: political commitment. His work clearly involves critical thoughts on issues such as history and reality in geopolitical conflicts. His works were exhibited at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 50th International Art Exhibition, Z.O.U. Zone of Urgency, Venice and he had solo exhibitions at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and at Yvon Lambert, Paris.
Dan Phiffer (US) is a programmer and creative worker from California, currently residing in Brooklyn. As a student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program Dan helps coordinate a weekly tutorial series called Drive-Bys. Dan is most interested in exploring the possibilities and limitations of the web as a medium of creative expression and shared cultural experiences.
Claus Pias (DE / AT), born in 1967; professor of epistemology and philosophy of digital media at the University of Vienna’s Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy; 2006: visiting fellow at Vienna’s IFK-International Research Center for Cultural Studies.
James Powderly (US) has a masters degree from NYU’s ITP program and comes to Eyebeam from Honeybee Robotics where he worked as the director of technology development and an engineer from 2002. At Honeybee, James developed technology for NASA’s Mars rover that is currently on the surface of the red planet, and engineered an installation for the Architects Diller + Scofidio that was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art. James has previously worked at Eyebeam as an artist in residence, he is a partner in RobotClothes, and the co-founder of the Robotics Society of America New York City Chapter.
Carlo Ratti (US) is a civil engineer and architect who teaches at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the SENSEable City Laboratory. He is also a founding partner of the architecture office carlorattiassociati-Chiara Morandini, Walter Nicolino, Carlo Ratti.
Regrets (Jane Mulfinger, US; Graham Budgett, US), both artists and faculty members of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have exhibited widely in the public arena and in commercial galleries including: Camden Arts Centre; St. Pancras Station; The British Library; The Victoria & Albert Museum; The Photographers’ Gallery & the Mayor Gallery, London; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Projects UK, Newcastle; Franklin Furnace Archive, New York; Orchard Gallery, Derry; Ben Maltz/Otis Gallery, Los Angeles; and Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts.
Maren Richter (AT) is a curator and author as well as a project developer in the visual arts field for Linz 2009—European Capital of Culture. Among the recent exhibitions she has curated are: “Wayward Economy,” Maintrend Gallery Taipei, 2005; “Micronation Travelling Agency” partner project, Transmediale 2006, Berlin; “Wrong(ed) Attitude,” Sparwasser HQ/Berlin, 2006; “Naked Life,” MOCA Taipei, 2006.
Luis Rico (ES) is an artist and cultural producer who specializes in transdisciplinary cultural projects that bring together artistic, scientific, technological, and social practices. He is co-director of the MediaLabMadrid Program at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid (Spain) and a founding member of the Banquete Foundation. http://www.medialabmadrid.org , http://www.banquete.org
Christopher Romberg (CH), born in 1976, BA (Hons); graduated from high school in Feldkirch, Austria; exhibition technician at Kunsthaus Bregenz and the Generali Foundation, Vienna; studied product & furniture design at the New Design Centre St. Pölten and Kingston University, London; recipient of an Award of Recognition in the Miele Design Competition; EOOS Design Bureau staff member; freelancer since 2005.
Evan Roth (US) is a recent MFA graduate from the Design Technology department at Parsons where he was his class valedictorian. He is the creator of Graffiti Analysis (video), a project that uses motion tracking, computer vision technology, and a custom C++ application to record and analyze a graffiti writer’s pen movement over time. Evan’s media experiments also include Explicit Content Only, Postal Labels Against Bush, and Graffiti Taxonomy.
Dennis Russell Davies (US/AT) studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School in New York. Following chief conductor stints in St. Paul, Stuttgart, Bonn and Vienna as well as appearances at the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals, he has been chief conductor of the Bruckner Orchester Linz since 2002 and Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Mozarteum Conservatory in Salzburg. He also works regularly with many other ensembles, including the Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Münchner Philharmoniker and the orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris.
The Sancho Plan (UK) are an award-winning collective that produce live audiovisual performances, experimental musical animations and interactive audio toys. Their AV works explore the real-time interaction between music and video and its potential for narrative and storytelling. Through the careful combination of animation, sound, music and technology, The Sancho Plan create fantastical worlds in which animated musical characters are triggered by a variety of electronic drum pads. Their creative output has been shown in clubs, festivals, cinemas, theatres and on television and computer screens around the world. The Sancho Plan are presently working with AV pioneers Coldcut to develop a series of interactive musical toys, scheduled for commercial release in 2007.
SCAPHA (Hilke Fährmann, DE; Jürgen Schneider, DE). Hilke Fährmann is an actress and integral dance and expression therapist ITA and Jürgen Schneider is a percussionist and composer. Both work together in the legendary Scapha Performances, where they are both players and actors at the same time.
Susanne Scheel (DE) studied film and television, theater, journalism and communication at Ruhr University, Bochum. Received masters degree with paper “VJing—Musikvisualisierung im 20. Jahrhundert” (“VJing-Music Visualization in the 20th Century”) in October 2005. Before and during her studies, she worked in various capacities in the cultural, television and event fields. Most recently curator and organizer of the International VJ Contest at the International Video Festival in Bochum. Currently working as freelance project assistant on “Talking Cities” (an architecture and design exhibition).
Jürgen Scheible (DE/FI) is a researcher, engineer and media artist. He is a PhD candidate at Media Lab, University of Art and Design, Helsinki and a visiting scientist at MIT, USA. In 2006 he became a Forum Nokia Champion for being a bridge-builder between art & engineering.
Christine Schöpf (AT) studied German and Romance languages. PhD, journalist, since 1981 head of the department art and science at the ORF Upper Austrian Regional Studio, focusing on Ars Electronica and Prix Ars Electronica. Since 1979 in a number of different capacities, key contributions to the development of Ars Electronica. Together with Gerfried Stocker artistic co-director of Ars Electronica since 1996.
Franz Schwabeneder (AT), born in 1942; in 1965, he began working as a journalist for the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten newspaper, heading its “Culture and Media” section from 1973 to his retirement in 2003; journalistic activities on book projects include Die Ars Electronica—Kunst im Zeitsprung and Promenade 39—Das Landestheater Linz 1803–2003; he authored an important part of Linz’s application to be named 2009 European Capital of Culture.
Andrew Shoben (UK). In 1993 he founded Greyworld in Paris. Their goal is to create works of art that articulate public spaces, allowing some form of self-expression in areas of the city that people see every day but normally exclude and ignore. They have exhibited work around the world, with permanent installations in 12 countries. Andrew Shoben is a former lecturer at the Royal College of Art, and is a visiting Professor to several universities in the UK and the US. Since 1999, he has been a special advisor to the Arts Council of England (LAB) and has been nominated for a NESTA fellowship. He has recently been invited to host an major arts TV series for broadcast on British television.
http://www.greyworld.org
Christa Sommerer (AT)/Laurent Mignonneau (FR/AT) are internationally renowned media artists working in the field of interactive computer installation. They currently hold positions as Professors for Interface Culture at the University of Art and Design in Linz Austria and at the IAMAS International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan. Descriptions of their works can be found at Christa’s homepage: http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~christa
SPIRE (Charles Matthews, Christian Fennesz, Philip Jeck), http://www.spire.org.uk Charles Matthews (UK), born in 1966, studied at the Royal College of Music, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar. From 1987 to 1989 he worked almost exclusively as a church organist. Since this time he has pursued a diverse and international career as organist, pianist, composer and teacher. Christian Fennesz (AT/FR) uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. His lush and luminant compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece. Philip Jeck (UK) born in 1952, studied Visual Arts at Dartington College of Arts, Devon. Began exploring composition using record players and electronics in the early 1980s. Performed solo shows throughout Europe and in Japan and USA. Composed and performed scores for dance and theatre companies. Philip Jeck is best known for his highly subversive work Vinyl Requiem with Lol Sargent.
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