Gert Aertsen/ code31, OKNO (www.atkn.org, www.code31.lahaag.org, www.lahaag.org)
Gert Aertsen holds an MA in fine arts. Since august 2001 he's part of Machine Centred Humanz, a multi-disciplinary collective of artists exploring the different fields of technology, arts, experimental music. In April 2003 he founded Code31 together with Pieter Heremans & Hendrik Leper. Code31 is an open studio for research, development and discussion about techniques and methodologies inmedia-art. He is also co-founder of OKNO, together with Guy Van Belle and Annemie Maes.
Sanjay Bhangar, pad.ma (www.pad.ma, www.camputer.org)
Sanjay Bhangar is a writer and software developer who lives in Mumbai. He is a founder member of CAMP, and has been involved with the pad.ma project since its inception. He is a big believer in the open-source software development model, and in new models of access that online archives can provide. He is currently working on a few web-based projects including a web-to-print publishing platform, a resource site for theatre in India, and online mapping and indexing tools.
pad.ma, short for Public Access Digital Media Archive, is an online archive of densely text-annotated video material, primarily footage and not finished films. The entire collection is searchable and viewable online, and is free to download for non- commercial use. pad.ma is seen as a way of opening up a set of images, intentions and effects present in video footage, resources that conventions of video- making, editing and spectatorship have tended to suppress, or leave behind. This expanded treatment then points to other, political potentials for such material, and leads us into lesser-known territory for video itself… beyond the finite documentary film or the online video clip. The design of the archive makes possible various types of “viewing”, and contextualisation: from an overview of themes and timelines to much closer readings of transcribed dialogue and geographical locations, to layers of “writing” on top of the image material. Descriptions, keywords and other annotations have been placed on timelines by both archive contributors and users. The pad.ma project is initiated by a group consisting of oil21.org from Berlin, the Alternative Law Forum from Bangalore, and three organisations from Mumbai: Majlis, Point of View and Chitrakarkhana/CAMP.
Benoit Bolsee
Benoit Bolsee (1964), living in Brussels, graduated from ULB in 1987. He is a civil engineer in Electronics and an expert in Telecommunication soft wares and protocols. Creator of a telecommunication framework multi-tasking, multi-threading, real-time, client-server and distributed architecture in C++ for voice switching applications on Unix servers using off-the-shelf Telecommunication boards. He also made adaptation and bug fixing of 3rd party telecom soft wares. Expert in software evaluations and development, he joined the Blender development in team in 2008, responsible for the Game Engine, leader for several projects: VideoTexture (sponsored by OKNO), Game Engine performance optimization, Logic state system, new Inverse Kinematics solver in collaboration with the KUL.
Kyd Campbell (www.frontierlab.org, www.l-i-n-e.org)
Kyd Campbell works as an independent programmer, exhibition designer and curator specialized in circulation, media and audio art and also as a digital creator of video and public interactive situations. She has developed a number of cultural venues in Canada and Eastern Europe including collaborations with the Upgrade! International network, Public Art Lab's project Mobile Studios, the Pure Data community, the HTMlles festival and CTRL_ATL_DEL festival in Istanbul. She is co-founder of tiny noise, a nomadic sound art exchange platform and contributes to digital communities and research groups focused on observing mobility and the emotional aspects of human-machine relationships. Remaining independent allows her some freedom to speculate and experiment, to welcome all forms of collaboration and information exchange.
Nick Collins (www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/nc81)
Nick Collins is a composer, performer and researcher in the field of computer music. He lectures at the University of Sussex, running the music informatics degree programmes and research group. Interests include machine listening, interactive and generative music, audiovisual performance, sound synthesis and music psychology. He is an experienced pianist and laptop musician, and active in both instrumental and electronic music composition.
Michal Čudrnák, COL-ME (www.itchybit.org)
Michal Čudrnák (1981,Myjava/SK) graduated from the Comenius University in
Bratislava, Slovakia, Faculty of Philosophy (MA degree in Library and
Information Science). Currently he works as IT project coordinator and digital curator at the Slovak national gallery, working on projects related to digitisation, digital archiving and visual resources cataloguing. He has been working as cataloguer in libraries, as PR assistant in culture and arts sector (a4 cultural space, Slovak national gallery), music events promoter for several organisations (Subclub, a4) and organiser for several NGOs – (Burundi, 13kubikov, Itchy Bit, Col-me).
Christoph De Boeck /A u d i o s t o r e
Christoph De Boeck creates sound and music for contemporary dance, performance and theatre productions. With Heine R. Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki he is a founding member of Deep Blue, a collective producing dance/performances in which audio and video technology maintain a tense relationship with movement. In 2003 Audiostore released a track on the Belgian electronica compilation of Glamor is Undead (Knobsounds label, Brussels). That same year de Boeck won first prize in the Bruges (B) Concertgebouw contest Liesbeth Concours with a laptop interpretation of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto.
Jozef Devos/jozefaleksandropedro, OKNO intern (www.myspace.com/jozefaleksanderpedro, www.soundcloud.com/jozefaleksanderpedro)
Jozef Devos is currently studying webdesign (web development & graphic design). He is active with sound design, composing, live recordings and audio technique
Lenka Dolanova, COL-ME/yo-yo
Lenka Dolanova is a curator, journalist and researcher, with interest in art, ecology, and (new) media. She is a founding member of NGO yo-yo. She studied art history at Charles University and audiovisual studies at FAMU in Prague. She worked as researcher at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (2005-6). Her thesis, dedicated to the pioneer of video art of Moravian origin Woody Vasulka, will be published in 2011 by AMU. She is currently working as editor of the cultural bi-weekly A2 (www.advojka.cz) and developing Kravin, an ecological media art site of Vysočina.
Marcio Domingues, OKNO
Marcio Domingues holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts, Sculpture, at the
Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa. He participated in a workshop in interactive systems by Restart (www.restart.pt), a workshop in Arduino by CADA (http://www.cada1.net), the COOP project (www2.iim.cz/wiki/index.php/Coop), and Multiplace 2009 (www.yo-yo-yo.org/kanalizacni_ozveny_II.html). He exhibited in Concurso Vila Sol de escultura, Vilamoura, 2007. X and XI edicition of Prémio de Pintura e Escultura D. Fernando II, Sintra and was awarded with honorable mention in Concurso Vila Sol de escultura,Vilamoura, 2007.
Edith Doove, OKNO (www.edprojects.be)
Edith Doove (1963, Amby/Maastricht), living and working in Belgium as a freelance curator, critic and writer since June 1987. She worked as curator for the non-for profit art organisation Parbleu, Antwerp (1987-1993), as director-curator at MDD-Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (1999-2004) and as curator for Super! Triënnale van Hasselt 2005. She is working under the name ed.projects – international art agency since November 2005. She is also working as part-time advisor visual arts at IvOK – Institute for Practice-based Research in the Arts, KULeuven, since June 2007.
Jan Gerber, pad.ma (www.pad.ma)
Hannes Hoelzl
Hannes Hoelzl (1974, Bolzano/Italy) studied musicology and philosophy in Vienna, audio engineering in Graz/A and graduated as an MA in Sound & Music Technology at the HKU Utrecht Arts Academy/NL. Currently, he lives in Cologne where he held a fellowship at the Arts & Media Sciences Department of the Cologne Media Arts Academy KHM. He works in various disciplines and constellations, always orbiting around the central focus of sound be it as musician/performer, sound artist, designer, composer, software developer/programmer or instructor. He has performed internationally in Europe and China, and his installation works have been exhibited in the Venice Biennale (2001, 2006), in ZKM Karlsruhe (D, 2006), and in various museums and galleries from Berlin to Beijing. He held workshops and Master classes in the Katovice Arts Academy (PL), Beijing Central Conservatory and in various institutions in Germany.
Reni Hofmueller, ESC
Barbara Huber, COL-ME
Barbara Huber (1976, Linz/AT) lives and works in and for different EU countries. Fighting her way through the job jungle after studying philosophy in Vienna and ended up at the radio station FRO in Linz. Sound installations, experimental radio shows followed as well as workshop tours through CEE countries for audio and open source programmes and systems. Various artistic projects and performances followed like the online database projects karasssuite or soundsource. Co-founder of the organisation COL-ME in Bratislava in 2006. Currently mostly working with drupal systems and open source applications.
Kruno Jošt COL-ME
Kruno Jošt is involved in a wide range of artistic practices that span from personal to collaborative and participative works. Using trans-disciplinary discourse, researching relationships between art and culture, new and old technologies, science and consciousness he works in media of sound, video, performance, installation, social interventions and media hacks. His emphasis is on embracing and initiating group efforts in distributed networking of the artistic systems. He is acting through the GenteJunk? collective where, from 2006 he collaborates in many ongoing projects: an improvised, open, music and visual sessions “Impromondays”, “Live Noise Tupi” and “NoiseWall”. He was one of the founders and editors of magazine for culture: 04 - Megazine for Reality Hacking, one of the founders of Internet radio network Free Radio: Station MIR (FRSM), and running GentleJunk NetLabel? for non conventional music. He also initiated ongoing research on exchange in free and open culture between Brazil and Croatia. Kruno Jošt is one of the founders of organization UKE in Križevci (Urban Culture and Education) that focuses on international collaboration, cultural exchange and networking in new media art. He organizes international art meetings, residencies and festivals: Experimental 'Electronic Interventions' (EEII) since 2004 and Multimedia camp (MMKamp) since 2006 and its offspring Free Traveling Radio. At the moment on MFA program in new media, Transart Institute, Linz, Austria.
Anja Kanngieser
Anja Kanngieser is a researcher and writer currently based in Hamburg, Germany. She is primarily interested in political and social collectives that use creative strategies to compose temporary commons and organisations by which to re-imagine potential political landscapes. She is a current collaborator on the future archive and ‘vocabulaboratories’ projects, and works with radio.
Michal Kinderney COL-ME/yo-yo
Michal Kinderney (1978) studied at the video department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology and at FAMU (Film and TV School of Arts Centre of Audiovisual Studies). He works mostly with video and sound, researching their relations and analysis in time and space. He participated in numerous international exhibitions and events.
Verena Kuni, OKNO (www.kuniver.se)
Verena Kuni is scholar in the field of history and theory of art and media cultures and professor for Visual Culture at Goethe University, Frankfurt Main. Since 1996 she is lecturing, researching and teaching at universities and art academies in Europe and beyond. From 1995 to 1999, she co-curated the video section of Kasseler Dokumentarfilm and Video Festival, where since 1999 she is director of the yearly inter-fiction summit for art, media, and network cultures. Her research is dedicated a. o. to transfers between material and media cultures; media of imagination; technologies of transformation; DIY and pro-sumer cultures; games, play & toys as tools; (in)visibilities and decay. She has published widely (print & online) on contemporary arts & media, their histories and futures.
Stephanie Laforce
Stephanie Laforce (1980) works and lives in Brussels. She graduated in 2004 from ISLAP-ERG in Installation and Performance contemporary arts, and is now following a course in electro acoustic music composition at Academia of Soignie. She works as a visual and sound artist for multiple pieces and events, with plastic art installations, environmental music pieces and voice performances, video and sup8. She builds poetic sound making dispositive for her electro acoustic compositions, made for theatre, exhibitions and circus. She has worked on auto-construction urban hut installations in public space, questioning the place of human in a machinist world by re-appropriation of empty/transit places. She practices also as “art-therapist” in and outside psychiatry institutions. She has worked in multiple Belgian and international art places and organisations.
Maureen Levis, ESC
Maureen Levis is a translator, language trainer, food blogger and enthusiastic balcony gardener who has been collaborating with the ESC as a translator and proof reader since 2003. Her Master thesis was about the viability of a small farming approach for farmers in the Rhône-Alpes region in France as a sustainable alternative to industrial agriculture. As part of her research, she spent 5 months in Lyon as an intern at the Confédération paysanne, the second largest farmers' union in France. She was involved in the translation of texts for the 5th meeting of the European Seed Network “Let's liberate diversity!” which took place in Graz this spring. Through her participation in Open Greens, she hopes to contribute to the sustainable greening of Graz and to network with other urban gardeners.
Sebastian Lütgert, pad.ma (pad.ma)
Sebastian Lütgert is an artist, programmer and writer living in Berlin.
He is co-founder of Bootlab (www.bootlab.org, 2000-), Pirate Cinema Berlin
(www.piratecinema.org, 2004-), pad.ma (www.pad.ma, 2007-) and 0x2620
(www.0x2620.org, 2010-).
Annemie Maes, OKNO (wwww.thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be)
Annemie Maes, media artist and activist, holds a MA degree in fine arts and cultural studies. She is founder of so-on, a group of artists working with image, sound and technology. In their art projects they research the transversal field of installations, performances and audio-visual compositions. Most of the projects are linked to the problematization of new art in the public space, from a socio-cultural background. The focus is to identify innovation and change while developing artistic projects, and research new aesthetical presentation techniques. Annemie Maes is co-founder of OKNO, an artist-run organisation working with art & technology, and is responsible for OKNO’s day-to-day management. In her personal artistic research she focuses on the behaviour of language in its many appearances: textual, sonic and visual, as well as gestural or body language. How do these disparate elements relate to each other and how do they organize within a system, which includes human and computer as a sender and a receiver [and vice versa]? Her artistic research and cultural activism projects are publicly presented as the ongoing project ‘politics of change’ - Daad (Do and act Differently), with a focus on the topics women empowerment, ecology and public space.
Lionel Maes (wwww.lavillahermosa.com)
Lionel Maes (1985) began collaborating with various graphic collectives while studying. He pursued studies in visual communication and digital art at the École de Recherche Graphique. In 2007 he founded La Villa Hermosa with Pierre-Philippe Duchâtelet.
Norbert Math, ESC
Norbert Math, lives in Vienna, studied Electroacoustics at the University of Music, Vienna, technical and artistic staff at the IEM, University of Music, Graz. Since 2001 he is curator of Fluss - NÖ. Fotoinitiative. In 2005 he participated in teh Artist in Residence program at UMAS, Canada. Since 2007 he is working as an assistant professor at the Nuova Academia di Belle Arti, Milan.
Olivier Meunier, OKNO
Olivier Meunier (1976) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. His is active in many domains but concentrated on video, interactive 3D and sound interaction, and is using and supporting development of free wireless city mesh network in Brussels (reseaucitoyen.be). Currently he is one of the artistic directors of arts organization OKNO. He has done live video and interactive installations with multiple groups and organisations, in Belgium and abroad since 2000. He participated in the founding of international VJing festival Cimatics.com, worked on the multi-screen Woaw-Lucidlight system as lead artist with periactes.com, and developed video shows and an immersive installation for Foton.be after having received in 2004 the Belgian French Community multimedia price for a virtual reality piece using 3d and video tracking. He is using and performing with free software (FLOSS), and promoting IT education by organising multimedia labs for local communities in his laeknlab.be project.
Hana Miletić, OKNO (www.hanamiletic.com, www.croatian-photography.com)
Hana Miletić (1982, Zagreb), lives and works in Brussels, holds a MA in Art History and Archaeology (Vrije Universiteit Brussels) and a MA in Fine Art Photography (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp). Currently she is working as a research fellow and guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp where she is conducting a research project in the visual arts.
Vilem Novak
Vilem Novak (1981) lives and works in Prague, graduated from Faculty of fine arts of the Technical University Brno in 2009 with rector's prize. As new media artist, he participated in multiple solo and collective exhibitions since 2005, mostly in Czech rep. and Slovakia. He is specialised in installations, 3D interactive applications, virtual reality, performance, augmented reality, generated reality, video and automatically generated video. He is a script and system developer in Python for Blender, and released multiple popular add'on for this package.
Christian Pointer, ESC (www.helsinki.at, www.graz.funkfeuer.at, www.realraum.at, www.mur.at)
Christian Pointer (1984, Graz/AT) attended a higher technical collage for electronics
and informatics in Graz. Since then he has been studying telematics (a
combination of telecommunication and informatics) at the Graz University of
Technology. He has worked for several firms developing electronic
circuits and programming microcontrollers. Currently he works as technician for
Radio Helsinki, a free radio station in Graz. He’s also co-founder, and currently chairman, of the wireless community network Funkfeuer Graz and the hacker space Realraum; and member of the steering committee of mur.at, running server infrastructure and providing network connectivity for cultural organisations in Graz.
Danielle Roberts OKNO (www.aqab.nl, www.numuseum.nl, www.collectingsilence.org, www.e-pressed.net)
Danielle Roberts is originally trained as a monumental designer and sculptor. At the end of last century she made the switch to new media art. In the first years the focus was on Internet and CD ROM productions. Through personal, interactive pieces she visualised the exceptional in every day moments using video, animation, photography and text. Through the years her interest shifted to programming online applications and working with (personal and biofeedback) data, which make it possible to visualize the processes of the mind. Working with sensors in a wearable environment is the most recent step in her development. As a consequence of Internet and ubiquitous computing the data are more and more ‘live’. This makes it possible to penetrate deeper into the matter of every day life and the mind discovering patterns and motivations. Can these data help to shed a light on the mystery of Life?
Olivia Rochette, OKNO (www.claes-rochette.be)
Olivia Rochette holds an MA in film from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Gent, film department. She is a foodie, often surprising us with delicious treats together with Margo De Strijcker.
Ofer Smilansky, OKNO
After a classical formation in music and theatre during high school, Ofer Smilansky decided to study electronic arts at the Musrara School for Photography, Digital Media and New Music in Jerusalem, Israel. Ofer is presently a student in the Art Science department at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague, The Netherlands. He is playing laptop and performing with improvisation groups in the Netherlands: Gamila, Royal Improvisers Orchestra, and several school projects. His artistic interests also lead him to explore the relation between image and sound and the possible ways to combine them on stage. In 2008 he made the short movie Effraction which was screened at the Holland Animation Film Festival 2008. He just completed his last work, the live cinema installation Transparent Things, and he is developing new ideas on how to work with improvised music, images and lights.
Jeroen Uyttendaele, OKNO
Jeroen Uyttendaele is a sound artist. Sound as a sculptural and tangible entity is the main focus his work and research. He sees sound as a physical material, which can be transformed to any form imaginable. He often works with physical materials that evolve into instruments, sound installations or kinetic objects. Jeroen has Master degrees in Audiovisual Arts/radio and ArtScience.
Guy Van Belle OKNO/COL-ME/yo-yo (www.societyofalgorithm.org)
Guy Van Belle (mxHz.org) has been prominently involved in the use and development of media for artistic purposes since 1990. Since 2000 he has been working as xgz under the name of the collective digital band mxHz.org (machine cent'red humanz), creating collaborative performances, concerts, workshops, exhibitions and unexpected experimental/abstract art projects. He has been working across Europe, with a primary focus on 'areas of transition' in South, Central and Eastern Europe. His streaming workshops have resulted in the establishment of active new networks among artists, institutions, and cultural activists. With Akihiro Kubota he started the Society of Algorithm in 2001, working on net-based music performances. He is co-founder of OKNO, together with Annemie Maes and Gert Aertsen.
Isjtar/Albert Junior Vandebroeck, OKNO (http://isjtar.org http://societyofalgorithm.org www.code31.lahaag.org)
Albert Junior Vandebroeck works as an independent artist under the name Isjtar. He is active as a new media artist, electronic composer and performer. Aside from his work as an artist, he is a core member of arts organization OKNO. He is specialized in experimental media techniques and has conducted several workshops, gave lectures and published articles in this field. He is part of several collectives (Society Of Algorithm, mXhz) and works with numerous Belgian and international artists such as Annemie Maes, Guy Van Belle, Shelbatra Jashari, Akihiro Kubota, Ofer Smilansky and Jeroen Uyttendale. He took part in dEAF07, Cynetart06, Sonambiente06, Upgrade! Chain Reaction, I'mPulse Beijing, ZKM Flying Circus and other events.
Dieter Van Dam, OKNO
Dieter Van Dam studied audiovisual arts at RITS academy and philosophy at VUB. Currently he works as researcher for Idea department of RITS and as teacher in the radio department of RITS. He also produces radio shows for the XL AIR radia contribution.
Bart Vandeput/bartaku
Bart Vandeput has a background in communication science & drumming. His work includes installations, interventions & experiments combining/opposing threads, images and sounds using electronics, digits, drills and other spinning tools and toys.
Els Van Riel, OKNO
Els van Riel (1965), lives and works in Brussels, has studied photo-and cinematography, and has worked as a photographer, editor, and producer for various photo-, film-, video- and theatre productions. She makes images move on contemporary experimental music, and creates film- and video installations based on mixed real time-recordings.
Elena Veljanovska (www.sites.google.com/site/hyperactivelazygirlsite/), Line
Elena Veljanovska is an art historian and independent curator. In order to reach all her interests, she always makes a balance between the need for individual development and working in a collective. She works as a curator since 2004. Consequently, Elena has curated several projects focusing on the urban topics and different aspects of documenting the city dynamics in the period of 2006 – 2007: exhibitions, lectures and a workshop, and has published texts for artist’s exhibitions. Since 2006, she is a co-founder of Line Initiative and Movement, platform for new media art and technology related arts, based in Skopje, Macedonia. In Line, she is responsible for the overall program development and coordination. In 2007 she co-curated the educational project Consumer vs. User; in 2008, she was the program coordinator of the Chain reaction, 3rd meeting of the Upgrade! International, held in Skopje in September, 2008. In 2009 she was a guest curator in the gallery Stedefreund in Berlin, Germany and a co-curator at the 53 International Art exhibition in Venice, Italy. Beginning in 2010, she holds 2 lectures a year for the Visions of art - Contemporary Art E-learning program (Germany-Mexico). Currently is a co- curator of the Soft Borders exhibition in Sao Paolo, Brazil (October 2010) and 4Tuned city travelling exhibition (September- December 2010).
Manuela Zechner
Manuela Zechner is a cultural worker and researcher living between the UK and Austria. Her main projects include the future archive www.futurearchive.org, www.vocabulaboratories.net as well as collective work related to contemporary subjectivity and ways of thinking change. She is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London, writing about collective practices between the fields of culture and care.