COMPUTER ANIMATION / FILM / VFX
J.P. Lewis (US)
J.P. Lewis is a research lead at Weta Digital and a part time Senior Lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. Lewis has software credits on several films including Avatar, The Matrix sequels, and Forrest Gump. Previously he has worked at academic and industrial research labs including the University of Southern California and Stanford University, as well as in the film industry at companies including Industrial Light and Magic and Disney. His published algorithms have been incorporated in commercial software and adopted in the film industry. His current work involves applications of computer vision and machine learning techniques to special effects.
Lorie Loeb (US)
Lorie is a professor in the computer science department at Dartmouth College, director of the digital arts program and President/co-founder of a start up (TellEmotion, Inc.). Lorie loves to build tools that synthesize art, science, technology and social activism to motivate changes in behavior or simply to make a story out of complex data. Before coming to Dartmouth, Lorie was Senior Research Scientist in the Computer Graphics Lab at Stanford University, where she worked with Chris Bregler as a founding member of the Movement Lab. Screenings of films Lorie has worked on include the Museum of Modern Art NY, the Sundance Film Festival, the NY Film Festival, the London Film Festival and the Whitney Biennial. Awards for films she animated include two Emmy awards (one National and one Local) and the Cine Golden Eagle Award. Lorie was a faculty member in the arts as well as the sciences. She was a professor of film and animation production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design. Lorie brings her ability to make a story out of complex data to the GreenLite Dartmouth project and TellEmotion. GreenLite Dartmouth was launched in April 2008 as an effort to motivate students to change their behavior and conserve resources. Using real-time energy use data, historic data and predictions of future use, GreenLite turns energy use into “mood scores”, animations, comics and other displays aimed to touch people’s emotions and change their attitudes. The success of the project led to the formation of TellEmotion, which has been implemented across the US and England. Lorie’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Sony, Intel, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, The Neukom Foundation for Computational Science, the Morgan Family Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Paul Debevec (US)
Associate Director, Graphics Research, USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He is a Research Professor at the University of Southern California and the Associate Director of Graphics Research at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. His work has focused on image-based modeling and rendering techniques beginning with his 1996 Ph.D. thesis at UC Berkeley, with specializations in architecture, high dynamic range lighting, and human facial capture. He serves as the Vice President of ACM SIGGRAPH and recently received an Academy Award® for his work on the Light Stage facial capture systems. Founded in 1999, the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies is a University-Affiliated Research Center pursuing the next generation of virtual reality for training, education, and entertainment.
Isaac Kerlow (US)
Isaac Kerlow has a long career as a pioneer digital artist and independent filmmaker, and his work has been shown internationally. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Earth Observatory of Singapore, and arrived to the tropical island in 2005 as Founding Dean of the country’s first professional art and film school in the country. Isaac is also the author of several ground-breaking books. including “The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects” currently in its 4th Edition. His recent film “Mayon: The Volcano Princess” won the Best Concept Award at the United Nations Summit of Environmental Cinema in 2010.
Boo Wong (US)
Boo Wong is the Senior Producer of Design & Content at The Mill with experience encompassing broadcast, film, web, games and print. A native of Singapore, Boo’s weaving path to animation came through studying Electrical Engineering at California State University and touring the world as a modern ballet dancer. She entered television production as a compositor at Curious Pictures during the early days of the digital desktop revolution. Later, Boo became Head of Production/Executive Producer at Psyop where she executive produced Coca-Cola’s multi-award-winning “Happiness Factory,” amongst others. She was instrumental in spearheading Psyop’s companywide pipeline and proprietary software tools. Boo has also produced animation, FX and graphics in long-form, most notably for Academy Award-winning documentary “The Cove,” Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner “And God Grew Tired of Us” and Academy Award-nominee “Murderball.” A prominent member of the animation and commercial production community in the U.S., Boo has served on the board of directors for ACM Siggraph NYC. She has also been a jury member for Electronic Theater, Siggraph 2004 & Ars Electronica 2005 & 2007.
DIGITAL MUSICS & SOUND ART
Martin Supper (DE)
Professor for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art at Berlin University of Arts. Born in Stuttgart. Training as radio and television technician. Theoretical Computer Science, Linguistics and Musicology studies at the Thechnical University of Berlin. From 1980, DAAD stipend recipient for two years at the Instituut voor Sonologie, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht. Studies there in computer music and electroacoustic music under Gottfried Michael Koenig. Post-graduate degree in Computer Science, PhD in Musicology under Helga de la Motte- Haber and Dieter Schnebel. Since 1985, in charge of the UNI.K – UdK | Studio for Sound Art and Sound Research and since 2009 Director of Department Sound Studies at the Central Institut for Continuing Education. Both at Berlin University of the Arts. Science publications, compositions and sound installations since 1981.
Phil Mossman (UK)
Philip Mossman is a veteran of groundbreaking music production who uniquely has recorded and toured with some of the most cutting edge artists of the last 15 years while managing to create award winning scores to picture over the same period. Philip exploded into prominence in the mid 90’s during the UK’s post-rave era as a member of Andrew Weatherall’s dark apocalyptic visionaries “The Sabres of Paradise.” After the “Sabres” self imposed exile, Philip was recruited by Belfast’s very own David Holmes to collaborate on a slew of productions for the likes of “U2, Manic Street Preachers and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.” Holmes’ cinematic influences soon caught the attention of Hollywood’s heavy hitters and the team scored Stephen Soderburgh’s “Out Of Sight” and later “Oceans 11.” On relocating to New York, Mossman co-composed and collaborated on two seminal recordings, Primal Scream’s “Xtrmntr” and David Holmes’ “Bow Down To The Exit Sign,” with the then unknown and self confessed studio nerd “James Murphy.” In 2001, James Murphy invited Philip to join the newly minted outfit, LCD Soundsystem. After five years with the band, Philip made the tough decision to quit touring, but was recently invited to rejoin for the band’s final shows at Terminal 5 and the now legendary and epic finale at Madison Square Gardens. In 2006, Philip accepted the position of Executive Producer at Amber New York. It was at Amber that Philip met fellow composer Will Bates. Mossman and Bates’ first collaboration together was for the Nomis, “Damn Boots” campaign, which won the duo a Gold Lion in Cannes 2008 and a Gold Clio Award in 2009. In 2010 Mossman and Bates launched “Fall on Your Sword.” Within twelve months of opening their doors, “Fall on Your Sword” have scored four full-length features including Mike Cahill’s “Another Earth” which drew a lot of attention at Sundance 2011 and sold to Fox Searchlight.
Christina Kubisch (DE)
Christina Kubisch was born in 1948 in Bremen, and studied painting, music and electronics in Hamburg, Graz, Zürich and Milan. She made a name for herself in the 1970s with performances and so-called video concerts, and since the early ‘80s with spatial sound installations, light spaces and works in public spaces. In her installations, Christina Kubisch often uses technical procedures she developed herself such as sound propagation via electromagnetic induction. She has many electroacoustic compositions and radio productions to her credit. In 2003, she resumed doing live performances. Numerous grants and awards in Germany and abroad including the prize of the Kulturkreis im BDI 1988; work grant of the Kunstfonds Bonn e.V. 1990; work grant of the Senat of Berlin 1995; Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis 1999; Carl Djerassi Honorary Fellowship, USA 2000; artist-in-residence IASPIS, Stockholm 2002; Ehrenpreis des Deutschen Klangkunstpreises 2008; DIVA residency Copenhagen 2009; SR Medienkunstpreis 2009. Individual & group exhibitions in museums and galleries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North & South America; participation in numerous international festivals and group exhibitions including Resonanzen, ZKM, Karlsruhe 2005; Her Noise, London 2005; B!AS International Sound Art Exhibition, Taipei 2005; Stockholm New Music 2006; Invisible Geographies: Sound Art from Germany, New York 2006; Sharjah Biennale 2007; Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007; Soni(c)loud, Mexico City 2008; The Marfa Sessions, Texas, USA 2008; Ars Electronica, Linz, 2010; RUHR 2010 European Capital of Culture; Triennale Douala, Cameroon 2010; gateways, Art and Networked Culture, Tallinn, 2011; Sound Art.Klang als Medium der Kunst, ZKM Karlsruhe 2012. Since 1975, releases on various labels including Cramps Records, Edition RZ, ampersand, semishigure, Die Schachtel, Olof Bright and Important Records. Guest professorships in Maastricht, Paris and Berlin; since 1994, professor of audiovisual art at the HBK–University of Visual Arts Saarbrücken; since 1997, member of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin; lives in Hoppegarten near Berlin.
AGF (DE)
Digital songwriter, sound composer and poet – Born 1969 in East Germany lives and works in Hailuoto, Finland. Known also as AGF. Focus of work includes the relationship between language and sound, audiovisual live performance, digital communication, sound installations and commissions for movies and theater. Throughout her career, Greie has released 20 long player records and numerous collaborations under such aliases as AGF/Delay (with Vladislav Delay), Greie Gut Fraktion (with Gudrun Gut), and The Lappetites (with Kaffe Matthews and Eliane Radigue), many collaborations with the award-winning classical composer Craig Armstrong. Greie also runs her own production company, AGF Producktion, and has produced records for other artists most famously for Ellen Allien (SOOL, 2009, BPitch).
Dajuin Yao (US)
Sound artist, producer, curator, radio host, art historian. For decades, Dajuin has been creating and promoting experimental music and sound art in China through concerts, radio shows, websites and teaching. He has curated the largest international new media performances in China, including Sounding Beijing 2003 and the opening concerts for the 2008 Shanghai eArts Festival. In 1997 Dajuin founded China Sound Unit, a pioneering phonography project devoted to the documenting and recontextualizing of Chinese urban sound phenomena with a series of audio releases, performances and installations. For his personal work, he specializes in creating otherworldly sound realms using algorithmic processing of Chinese speech and traditional music. Dajuin is also the producer of the sound art record label Post-Concrete. He is currently Director of Open Media Lab at the China Academy of Art.
INTERACTIVE ART
Fiona Raby (UK)
Fiona Raby is a partner in the design partnership Dunne & Raby, established in 1994. She is professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and a Reader in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in London. Dunne & Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies.Their work has been exhibited at MOMA, the Pompidou Centre, and the Science Museum in London and is in the permanent collections of MOMA, V&A, FRAC and FNAC. They have published two books: Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects (Princeton Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (MIT Press).
Junji Watanabe (JP)
Junji Watanabe, born in 1976, is a research specialist at NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan, with research focusing on perception and media technology. His studies have been published in major scientific journals in the field of neuroscience and interface technologies. He also exhibited his works that demonstrated the influence of media technologies on perceptual experiences in technology showcases and science/art museums, such as in SIGGRAPH and Ars Electronica Center. His works were honorary mentioned in Ars Electronica Prix 2004, and 2011. He received the Ph. D degree in Information Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo in 2005. More about his works: http://www.junji.org/
Mariela Yeregui (AR)
Mariela Yeregui is an electronic artist, and her works include interactive installations, video installations, net art, interventions in public spaces, video-sculptures, and robotic installations. Her works have been awarded prestigious prizes —such as the First Prize in BEEP_Art (Barcelona) in 2003, the First Prize at the National Salon of Visual Arts 2005, in the “New Supports” category, the Third Prize in the Transition MX Festival, the First Prize in Museum of Modern Art and Telefonica Prize 2004— and exhibited in various festivals and exhibitions around the globe. She has a Bachelor degree in Arts (University of Buenos Aires), graduated from the school of the National Institute of Cinematography, and holds a Master degree in Literature (Université Nationale de Côte d’Ivoire) with a specialization in African literature. She has written several articles on the history and aesthetics of electronic art, the problems of robotic art, the transdisciplinary perspective in the interrelationship between art and technology, etc. She was artist in residence at the Hypermedia Studio (University of California-Los Angeles), the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), the MECAD (Media Centre d’Art i Disseny – Barcelona, Spain), and the Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen (Germany). She is a founder and director of the Master in Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts at the National University of Tres de Febrero (Argentina)
Ksenia Fedorova (RU)
Media art researcher and curator. She has been an initiator and curator of the “Art. Science. Technology” program at the Ural branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts (Ekaterinburg, RU) where she has curated a number of international exhibitions and events. She has taught classes on media art theory and history at the Ural State University and the Danube University, Krems (AT), gave lectures at the ZKM| Karlsruhe (DE), University of Colorado, Boulder (CO) and has participated in many national and international conferences and workshops, including in Toronto, Copenhagen, Oxford, Moscow, Los Angeles. She is an author of articles and essays in Russian and international editions and is a co-editor (with Nina Sosna) of the collection of articles on media theory (in Russian, with contributions by A. Galloway, W.J.T. Mitchell, J.L. Déotte, G. Lovink among others; coming out in 2012). She served as a member of the 2011 selection committee for PRO&CONTRA, a symposium and media art contest based in Moscow, Russia. She holds MA in Philosophy and Art History. She is currently completing her PhD in Philosophy at the Ural Federal University (Ekaterinburg, RU) and is a PhD fellow at the Cultural Studies Graduate Group, University of California, Davis (USA), with the dissertation focusing on the concept of the ‘technological sublime’ in media arts.
Christa Sommerer (AT)
Christa Sommerer is professor and head of the department for Interface Cultures at the Institute for Media at the University of Art and Design in Linz. Since 20 years she is active as media artist, together with Laurent Mignonneau she has received numerous awards such the Golden Nica Prix Ars Electronica for Interactive Art in 1995. Their interactive art works have been show in around 200 international exhibitions in museums and galleries, among others at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the ZMK Karlsruhe, the Tinguely Museum Basel, the Kunsthaus Graz, the Museum of Fine Arts Santiago de Chile, the Moscow Biennale, the Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, the NTT-ICC Museum Tokyo, the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, the Victoria and Albert Museum London and the MOCA Cleveland. She held many lectures and taught at several international universities in Asia and Europe. Together with Laurent Mignonneau she has published four books on interactive art
HYBRID ART
Ursula Damm (DE)
Ursula Damm has become known for her installations dealing with geometry and its social impact on public space. Since 1995 these installations became interactive, dealing with architectural aspects on the basis of tracking technology of closed circuit video cameras (www.inoutsite.de) from public places. Aside she developed numerous installation on the relationship of nature, science and civilization like Venus I-IV (part of the collection of the Ludwig-Museum Koblenz) or double helix swing. Ursula Damm has had solo exhibitions at the Goethe House in New York, at NeuerAachenerKunstverein, Aachen and at the Kunstsammlung NRW Düsseldorf, K20, Germany (at the fountain wall) et.a.. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Translife Triennale at NAMOC Peking, Laboral Centro de Creation Industrial, Gijon, Spain, BIOS4, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain , the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen, Germany, Conde Duque, Madrid, Spain and the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne, Germany et.a. She has also participated in several international festivals, including Ars Electronica 1999 and 2006, Linz, Austria; ISEA 2002, Nagoya, Japan, Festival New Film New Media Montreal, Canada (honorary mention category interactive art) and „Paradoxien des Öffentlichen“, Lembruck Museum Duisburg. Currently she works on an interactive installation and setting for a public place at the Metro-Station Schadowstrasse in Düsselodorf/Germany. Since 2008 she holds the chair of Media Environments (Media Arts&Design) at the Media Faculty of the Bauhaus-University Weimar.
Dietmar Offenhuber (AT)
Dietmar Offenhuber has backgrounds in architecture, urban studies and digital media. He works on the spatial aspects of cognition, representation and behavior. Dietmar holds degrees from TU Vienna and the MIT Media Lab. He was key researcher in the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Media.Art.Research and taught in the Interface Cultures program as a professor at the Art University Linz. Currently he is researching his PhD dissertation in the Senseable City Lab at the Department for Urban Studies and Planning, MIT. His work has been shown, among other places, at ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, the Sundance Film Festival, Secession Vienna, the Seoul International Media Art Biennale and Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid.
Jens Hauser (DE)
Jens Hauser is a Paris-based curator, author and arts and culture critic. With a background in Media Studies and Science Journalism, he focuses on the interactions between art and technology, as well as on trans-genre and contextual aesthetics. He has curated exhibitions such as L’Art Biotech (Nantes, 2003), Still, Living (Perth, 2007), sk-interfaces (Liverpool, 2008/Luxembourg, 2009), the Article Biennale (Stavanger, 2008), Transbiotics (Riga 2010), Synth-ethic (Vienna, 2011) and Fingerprints… (Berlin, 2011/Munich, 2012). Hauser organizes interdisciplinary conferences and guest lectures at universities and international art academies. In his current research at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, he investigates the biomediality and wetware paradigms. Hauser is also a founding collaborator of the European culture channel ARTE and has produced numerous radio features.
Benjamin Weil (FR)
Since the Summer of 2009, Benjamin Weil has been the Artistic Director at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón, Spain), a venue devoted to the production and presentation of new cultural forms resulting from the changes brought by networked communication and computing. Born and raised in Paris, Weil lived most of his professional life in the USA, where he held such positions as Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA (2000-06) and Executive Director at Artists Space (2006-09). Greatly influenced by the early conceptual art practice and the resulting shifts in the field of curatorial practice, Weil has curated exhibitions out of the institutional walls, which led him to explore the web as the venue for art, and to the co-founding in 1995 of [äda ‘web], the first web production studio and site dedicated to contemporary art. Weil has since focused his curatorial interests on new artistic forms emerging from the confluence of conceptual art and the adopting of new technological tools by artists, which results from the ubiquity of technology in our contemporary realm: he curated Zones of Confluence (Villette Numérique festival, Paris, 2004) and was Curatorial Chair at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center in New York from 2003 to 2005. He has also been a visiting professor in the Visual Arts Department of IUAV (Universitá di Venezia) and from 2006 to 2011, he was the Artistic Director of H BOX, a video commissioning program of Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès.
Karin Ohlenschläger (DE)
Karin Ohlenschläger has been a critic and exhibition curator specializing in contemporary art and new media since 1985. She co-founded and co-directed MediaLab Madrid (2002-2006) and has directed various international initiatives, including the Cibervisión International Festival of Art, Science and Technology at Centro Cultural Conde Duque (CCCD) (2002) and Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid (1999); the International Festival of Infoarchitecture at the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid (1997); the In Art International Cybernetic Art Festival in Tenerife (1996); and the International Video Forum at Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo (MEAC) in Madrid (1986-1988). Her most notable exhibition projects include Pedro Garhel. Retrospectiva, at Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) and the La Regenta Cultural Centre in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and at Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2010-2011); Ecomedia: Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art, at the Edith Russ Site for Media Art in Oldenburg, [plug. in] in Basel (2007-2008) and Sala Parpalló in Valencia (2009); Digital Transit, at CCCD in Madrid (2006); and the trilogy banquete_nodos y redes, at the LABoral Art Centre in Gijón (2008) and the ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe (2009), banquete_comunicación en evolución, at CCCD in Madrid (2005) and Gran Canaria Espacio Digital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (2005), and banquete03_metabolismo y comunicación, at Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona, ZKM in Karlsruhe and CCCD in Madrid (2003-2004). Karin Ohlenschläger teaches Art, Science and Technology at the European University of Madrid and is the chairwoman of the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC).
DIGITAL COMMUNITIES
Thomas Schildhauer (DE)
Managing director of the College of Continuing Education at UdK–Berlin University of the Arts, and director of the university’s Institute of Electronic Business. Thomas Schildhauer is professor of marketing at Berlin University of the Arts. He specializes in the field of electronic business. In 1999, he established the university’s largest adjunct facility, the Institute of Electronic Business, which he has headed since its inception. He is also managing director of the UdK’s College of Continuing Education. In these capacities, Thomas Schildhauer is in charge of several masters’ programs including Leadership in Digital Communication, Sound Studies and Cultural Journalism. He is a member of the UdK’s Expanded Executive Committee. At present, Thomas Schildhauer teaches courses in the UdK’s Leadership in Digital Communication masters’ program as well as the Information and Management Technology masters’ program at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). As director of the newly-established Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Thomas Schildhauer pursues transdisciplinary research on internet-enabled innovation. Prior to his appointment to a professorship, Thomas Schildhauer spent many years in top management positions in the private sector, finally as CEO of Lufthansa Systems. He has more than a decade of experience in R&D involving internet-based business models, and has initiated and headed hundreds of application-oriented research projects. His numerous publications in this area of the creative economy document his intensive investigation of how digital media have changed the way individuals and enterprises communicate. His most recent book is the highly acclaimed “Social Media Handbuch.” Thomas Schildhauer is a member of the boards of directors of several companies in the creative economy and the media sector. He is also a member of the Berlin Chamber of Industry & Commerce’s Creative Economy Committee, and a juror in conjunction with the Berlin‐Brandenburg Innovation Prize and the Prix Ars Electronica. As coach and business angel, Thomas Schildhauer lends a helping hand to selected start-ups.
Yan Liu (NL)
Liu Yan is an advocate of cross-culture and cross discipline exchange, a social entrepreneur and a community organizer. Working primarily as the CEO and cofounder of Xindanwei, China’s largest co-working community of 6000 members and one of the leading creative centers in Shanghai which promotes and facilitates openness, creativity, sharing and collaboration, Liu Yan is the author of , the first publication and apps in Chinese to introduce coworking concept and teach people how to set up a coworking center. Liu Yan serves as an advisor, lecturer and mentor to students, entrepreneurs and startups on strategy, social responsibility,social innovation and social entrepreneurship. She speaks regularly at international conferences such as Skoll World Forum, Coworking Europe Conference, TEDx on social entrepreneurship, social innovation and social media. Liu Yan is a BMW foundation Young Global Leader and is awarded by Girl 2.0 as “top female innovator”. She serves as the jury member of Prix Ars Electronica 2011-2012, the most premium international award for digital art and community project. Liu Yan’s educational background is predominantly in Arts Management and Marketing with a breadth in cultural and creative entrepreneurial study and practices. As an independent consultant and lecturer in the Netherlands from 2003-2007 prior to her return to China, she served as advisory board member on cultural entrepreneurship for the city municipal of Utrecht, and worked as the advisor of the China program of Dutch Electronic Arts Festival(DEAF), an international and interdisciplinary biennial that focuses on art, technology and society, and has curated and organized the Creative Cross China & Europe conference for Picnic, Amsterdam’s leading annual international event, highlighting creativity and innovation.
Leila Nachawati (ES)
Leila Nachawati is a Spanish-Syrian blogger, communication strategist and human rights activist. She is an assistant professor of Communications at Carlos III University in Madrid and writes for several media like Periodismo Humano, Global Voices Online, Global Voices Advocacy and Al-Jazeera. She´s also a board member of AERCO (Spanish Association of Social Media Managers). She holds degrees in English Studies, Arabic Studies, and a master´s degree in International Cooperation. You can follow her on Twitter: @leila_na
Wolfgang Blau (DE)
Wolfgang Blau is the Editor-in-Chief of ‘Zeit Online’, the digital sister publication of Germany’s leading weekly newspaper ‘Die Zeit.’ Wolfgang was born in 1967 in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied acting and graduated from the University of Saarbrücken, Germany. While attending university, he became a radio news-anchor for Germany’s National Public Broadcasting Corporation and a station voice for Germany’s national television ARD. He received his formal journalism training at BLR Radiodienst in Munich, Europes largest syndicator for live radio news where he later became a managing editor. From 1999 to late 2007, he worked in Silicon Valley, in San Francisco and Washington D.C. as a freelance correspondent for Germany’s broadcaster ZDF and the German newspaper ‘Die Welt’ for which he wrote a weekly Silicon Valley column. In 1999, he developed and produced ‘AudioWELT’, the first online-audio portal of a European newspaper with a daily audio summary of Die Welt’s most relevant editorials. In 2003, he developed the concept for the new online-audio department of ‘Die Zeit’ and initiated the founding of Audible.de, which is now part of Amazon Inc. Wolfgang’s blog and podcast about the 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections for ZDF and Deutsche Welle from Washington D.C. was the first podcast of a German media company and the first blog of ZDF, one of Europe’s largest National Public Broadcasting Corporations. His blog and podcast about the Tsunami catastrophe in Southeast Asia for ZDF, in early 2005, was nominated for the Grimme Online Award, Germany’s most coveted award for online journalism. In the four years since Wolfgang joined ‘Zeit Online’ as Editor-in-Chief in March 2008, Zeit Online has been repositioned, its website rebuilt from the ground up and its unique visits have almost quadrupled. ‘Zeit Online’ is now considered to be one of Germany’s highest quality online news sites. In 2011, ‘Zeit Online’ won Germany’s two most important awards for online journalism, the Grimme Online Award and two Lead Awards in Gold. ‘Zeit Online’ is also the first and only German publication ever to have won the coveted Online Journalism Award of the American Online News Association ONA for its data-journalism projects. In a competition amongst Germany’s chief editors in print, radio, television and online media, Zeit Online’s Wolfgang Blau has recently been awarded Germany’s ‘Chief Editor of the Year 2011,’ being the first editor-in-chief of an online-only newsroom to have won this award. Moreover, speaking engagements and conference chairmanships on topics of media regulation and internet policy.
Peter Kuthan (AT)
Peter Kuthan, born in 1945 in Bludenz / Vorarlberg, graduated in sociology at the University of Linz. He is married and father of two grown up children. After some ten years of professional experience in social work and some extensive travelling he has been living with his family in Zimbabwe from 1989 until 1992 where he has been working as a consultant in the field of co-operative development. After his return to Austria he has been working as Consultant for monitoring and evaluation for the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Austrian NGO´s in the field of development cooperation. Since 1993 when he founded the Austria-Zimbabwe Friendship Association he has initiated and managed a number of cultural exchange projects between Austria and Africa. In 2001 he has started the Tonga.Online project which is aiming to provide the Tonga community along the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia with access to modern IT tools for education and cultural self representation. The project has won a Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention in 2002 and an Award of Distinction in 2004. For some years Peter has been lecturing concepts and methods in International Development Cooperation at the University of Vienna. For Linz09 as the the European Cultural Capital in 2009 he has designed and managed the project Parade, a city walk and encounter of musicians from all over the world.
Advisory Board 2012
Christopher Adams (TW), Heitor Alvelos (PT), Tim Causer (UK), Martijn de Waal (NL), Peter Tomaž Dobrila (SI), Michael Eisenriegler (AT), Wolfgang Gumpelmaier (AT), Insulares / Divergentes Research Team (PE), Mike Jensen (ZA), André Lemos (BR), Ronaldo Lemos (BR), Isaac Mao (CN), An Xiao Mina (US), Andrés Monroy-Hernández (US), Marcus Neustetter (ZA), Tiago Peixoto (BR), Melinda Reckham (AU), Ulrike Reinhard (DE), Clément Renaud (FR), Juliana Rotich (UG), David Sasaki (US), Michael Stadler (AT), Moritz Stefaner (DE), Lei Yang (CN)
[THE NEXT IDEA] VOESTALPINE ART AND TECHNOLOGY GRANT
Michael Doser (AT)
Senior research physicist, Physics Department CERN, 1978-1983: ETHZ, Zürich (CH) – Diploma in Physics, 1983-1988: Univ. Zürich (CH) – PhD in Particle Physics, 1988-1991: Research Assistant at KEK, Japan, 1991-1993: Research Fellow at CERN, 1993-present: Staff position as Research Physicist at CERN, 1997-1998: Sabbatical at SLAC, Stanford University, California, 2006-2008: Deputy Department Head, Physics Department, CERN, Membership in International Advisory Committees and Editorial Boards: Member of the SPSC (CERN); Member of the INTC (CERN); editor of Review of Particle Properties (since 1998); editor of Physics Letters B (since 2003); Member of OECD Global science forum on nuclear physics; member of the Cultural policy board, CERN 2011-2013
Gustav Pomberger (AT)
Univ. Prof. Dipl. Ing. Dr. Gustav Pomberger is Full Professor for Software Engineering and head of the Department of Business Informatics–Software Engineering at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz since 1987. His resume begins with a degree in electrical engineering. After nine years of experience in industry, he made a career change to academia. After his dissertation he transferred to a postdoctoral position with Professor Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. In 1983 he was appointed professor of computer science at the University of Zurich. In 1987 he was simultaneously offered positions at ETH Zurich, the Technical University of Vienna, and Johannes Kepler University of Linz. From 1992 to 1999 he led the Christian Doppler Research Laboratory for Software Engineering. He is member of the senate of the Christian Doppler Research Society, the senate of the Johannes Kepler University, the advisory board of Siemens Technology Accelerator, the board of supervision of the Ars Electronica Center GmbH and the Software Competence Center at Hagenberg and chairman of the advisory bord of the Open Common Initiative of Linz/Austria. He received the following awards: Austrian Computer Society Award for Particular Scientific Achievement (1985), Fellow of the Christian Doppler Research Society (2002) and the Upper Austrian Science Award (2006). He is author of numerous (more than one hundred) scientific publications. His basic research focuses on the design of high-quality software architectures and the systematic organization of software development processes, his applied research currently concentrates on the design of software architectures for augmented and virtual reality based embedded systems (such as navigation systems, local and context-based services) and the design and implementation of real-time systems. In the broader field of business informatics, his current research emphases are the design and implementation of quality management systems, the diagnosis of the effectiveness and economy of IT systems, and the development of methods for determining the e-business readiness of business processes and for the targeted, systematic selection of e-solutions for exploiting improvement potential in business processes.
Manfred Pietschmann (DE)
Manfred Pietschmann studied biology at the University of Hannover. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1983, he worked as a free-lance journalist. In 1986, he received a Robert Bosch grant for science journalism. In 1987, he signed on with Gruner + Jahr as editor & reporter on the staff of GEO Wissen. From 1992 to 1996 at Greenpeace Umweltschutzverlag, he was editor-in-chief of Greenpeace Magazine and Greenpeace News. During this time, Manfred Pietschmann was also an instructor in the Journalism program at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media. 2001-08, he headed his own firm, team P Media Production GmbH, a corporate media agency in Hannover. Since November 2008, Manfred Pietschmann has been on the staff of Heise Zeitschriften Verlag in Hannover as editor-in-chief of Technology Review, a monthly innovation magazine.
Horst Hörtner (AT)
Horst Hörtner is a media artist and researcher. He is expert in design of Human Computer Interaction and holds several patents in this field. Hörtner is founding member of the Ars Electronica Futurelab in 1996 and since then directing this atelier/laboratory. He started to work in the field of media art in the 1980ies and co-founded the media art group x-space in Graz/Austria in 1990. Horst Hörtner is working in the nexus of art & science and giving lectures and talks at numerous international conferences and universities.
Michael Sterrer-Ebenführer (AT)
sponsoring & special programme, voestalpine AG
Ela Kagel (DE)
Ela Kagel is a free-lance curator and producer. In 2010-11, she was a program curator at the transmediale festival of art and digital culture. In 2011, she founded SUPERMARKT, Berlin’s center for creative resources, and serves as its creative director. Ela Kagel initiated the Free Culture Incubator, which conducts various forms of research on the value & price of free-lance creative work. Since 2005, she has also been a curator at Public Art Lab, a nomadic setting for new media in urban spaces.
U19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD
Martin Hollinetz (AT)
OTELO – Open Technology Laboratory. Social education worker and teacher, regional developer and passionate advocate of Digital Bohème. The desire to overcome the bourgeois values and norms that he perceived as restrictive, the wish to reconfigure his identity, and the longing for creative freedom have been, since 1993, the motivations that have driven him to found and mentor a series of business start-ups, projects and associations having to do with work, youth culture, IT and media. A temporary “steady job” in the field of regional development put him in a position to set up OTELOs in the Upper Austrian towns of Gmunden, Vöcklabruck and Kirchdorf. Their areas of emphasis are the creative economy, media, textile art, robotics and exhibition development for kids age 10 and under. Again in 2012 OTELO is partner of Ars Electronica’s u19 CREATE YOUR WORLD Festival.
Robert Glashüttner (AT)
Robert Glashüttner is a journalist, writer, presenter and researcher with an emphasis on video game culture and digital life. He finished communication studies (University of Vienna) and holds a BA in audio engineering (SAE Vienna and Berlin/Middlesex University London). His main occupation is being a radio editor at Radio FM4 (part of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF) where he is head of the IT, cyberculture and video game department since March of 2010. Robert also writes for online and print magazines and publishes articles in essayistic and scientific readers.
Sirikit Amann (AT)
Sirikit Amann was born in 1961. She studied political science, theater and economics in Vienna, Munich and Boston. Since the ‘80s, she has been involved primarily with cultural education in the context of new media on the national and international level. Since 2006 Sirikit Amann has been curating the film programme “Young Animations” on behalf of Ars Electronica.
Martina Sochor (AT)
Martina Sochor was an independent contractor in the advertising industry until 2010, all the while discovering her true calling working with young people at the Kinderfreunde, Linz’s children’s advocacy organization. While pursuing her studies in the field of art education and media design which she began in 2006 at Linz Art University, she was active in student government (responsibility for educational & political affairs) and a member of the University Senate as well as the Curriculum Commission. In the summer of 2011, she launched UMLAUT M. to produce TV content designed expressly for young people. Its motto: “Medien um laut zu sein” (media to make noise). Since its inception, the organization’s editorial staff—currently numbering 15—has enjoyed ample opportunities to acquire impressive skills and use them to disseminate their views. Martina Sochor describes herself as a mediator whose mission is to enable adults to get to a point at which they can understand how young people see things.
Markus Sucher (AT)
Markus Sucher (AT) was born in 1985. He works as a visual artist in a domain at the nexus of film, animation, graphics and art. This wide-ranging field of interest is reflected in his portfolio, which includes hundreds of individual & group projects in Austria, Germany, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain. In 2005 while still an undergraduate at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (media art in Peter Weibel’s class in the Department of Media Design), Sucher’s media art project “Rennacs Studies” took top honors in the Prix Ars Electronica’s u19 category, which led to a series of exhibitions in Austria and abroad (White 8 Gallery, KIAF – Korean International Art Fair, Art Fair Cologne live performance, Artbits Gallery et al.). Since 2006, he has concentrated on producing commercials and music videos (MTV, Pro7,GoTv, Kino), numerous illustrations, design concepts, art projects as well as feature films.
