Participants

Carla Chan is a media artist from Hong Kong. She obtained her BA degree from the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong, and has worked in video, installation, photography, and interactive media projects. Her works, minimal in style and form, often blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, the figurative and the abstract. Several of these were selected for exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Asia, including at the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, the 26th Stuttgarter Filmwinter, and the 2012 Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennale. Currently based in Germany, Carla curated an exhibition featuring young Hong Kong media artists as a part of the 2013 CYNETART festival.

Dimitris Charitos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he teaches human-machine communication, interactive design, digital art and visual communication. He studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens, and C.A.A.D. in the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). He holds a PhD in interactive and virtual environments design. His artistic practice includes electronic music, audiovisual and interactive installations and virtual environments. He has participated in exhibitions in Greece, the UK and Cyprus. As a researcher or coordinator, he has participated in research projects (funded by Greek and European programs) on the subjects of virtual reality, locative media, digital art and multimedia.

Matthias Härtig works as an engineer in the arts and as a programmer for artistic interactive visual applications and real-time visual environments. He lives in Dresden. He is the initiator of the work cooperative DS-X.org, and founding member of the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau (TMA). He collaborates with Frieder Weiss in many projects that develop visuals especially designed for use in dance, theatre, music, and computer art, based on the video-sensing program Kalypso (developed by Frieder Weiss). With Ulf Langheinrich, Matthias is developing a modular toolkit based on MAX and Open GL. Other ongoing collaborations are with Johanna Roggan, shotAG, phase7, and Freie Waldorfschule Dresden. He has been teaching as part of the TMA Ferienakademie and at the ESB Media College in Dresden.

Martin Kusch studied art history, philosophy and painting in Berlin, and media arts with Peter Weibel at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he has also been teaching since 1997. Founder and artistic co-director of the Media performance group kondition pluriel, he is particularly interested in the transformation processes of the electronic media inside performative contexts, and on how digital technologies influence our perception of the body and space. His works have been presented at numerous festivals and institutions, such as: Ars Electronica (Linz), ISEA (Nagoya, Helsinki and Essen), Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie – ZKM (Karlsruhe), Transmediale (Berlin), CYNETart (Dresden), Experimental Performing Arts Centre – EMPAC (Troy), Le Centre des arts d'Enghien les bains (Enghien), the Mois Multi (Quebec City) and the Museumsquartier Wien (Vienna).

Phil Mayer is video artist, 3D animator, VJ, Graphic Designer and Structural Engineer. He has produced award-winning work for across a range of mediums. As a video artists and installation designer, his work has exhibited and performed at music & arts festival worldwide for almost 20 years. He is co-founder of GaiaNova Ltd in 2004. GaiaNova has delivered a diverse range of large scale video projects including the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall, Illuminating York in 2009, 2011 & 2013 for York City Council, work with a wide range of artists within the contemporary music scene. Phil Mayer created and produced a number of short films as well as providing assistance to other artists in the field. He acted as a co-curator and organiser of FULLDOME UK in 2010, 2011 & 2012 in partnership with Pedro Zaz and other institutions. In 2013 co-curated a program for the Kaluga Media Arts Festival.

Armando Menicacci studied dance (Vaganova technique and various contemporary approaches), piano, and music composition. He earned a BA in musicology from La Sapienza University of Rome and a PhD from l’Université de Paris, specializing in the use of digital technology in dance creation, research, and education. A member of Anomos, he directs Médiadanse at l’Université de Paris 8, a dance department laboratory oriented towards the relationship between research, creation, and pedagogy in dance and digital media. He also holds a professorship at École Média Art in Chalon-sur-Saone. Armando founded the Digitalflesh group with Christian Delécluse and is currently Associated Artist at the Le Manège de Reims theatre. He has published numerous articles on music, dance, theatre, and digital arts.

Mike Phillips is professor of interdisciplinary arts at Plymouth University’s School of Arts & Media. He is the director of research at i-DAT, an Arts Council England National Portfolio organization, and a principal supervisor for the Planetary Collegium.His research focus is on digital architectures and transmedia publishing, as shown in a series of operating systems that dynamically manifest “data” as experience to enhance perspectives on a complex world. He manages the FullDome Immersive Vision Theatre (IVT), a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of material, immaterial, and imaginary worlds, and is co-editor of Ubiquity, The Journal of Pervasive Media: http://www.ubiquityjournal.net/

Marie-Claude Poulin is trained in dance and kinanthropology at the Université du Québec à Montréal and holds an MA in Choreography at the Inter-University Center for Dance in Berlin. Between 1985 and 2000, she has taught in the field of somatic education and has worked as a performer, notably with choreographers Benoît Lachambre and Meg Stuart. In 2000, she co-founded the digital performance group kondition pluriel. Her works have been presented at numerous festivals and institutions, such as: ISEA (Nagoya, Helsinki and Essen), Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie – ZKM (Karlsruhe), Transmediale (Berlin), CYNETart (Dresden), Experimental Performing Arts Centre – EMPAC (Troy), Le Centre des arts d'Enghien les bains (Enghien), the Mois Multi (Quebec City) and the Museumsquartier Wien (Vienna). Since 2013, she is a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Jean Ranger, also known as Johnny Ranger, is a video and design artist. The reflections of the creative laboratory Mindroots, which Johnny founded, are intimately related to the emergence of new interactive technologies, particularly those of the Web. Over the last years he has focused on creating works, which use 360-degree circumferential projections. His films put the visual language on the foreground and present a new type of immersive cinema. His work has been shown at FILE festival (Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro), Ars Futura (Barcelona), at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), the Montreal Biennale, at TransitioMX (Mexico) and the B3 Biennial of moving images (Frankfurt) amongst others. He regularly collaborates with the Society for Arts and Technology/SAT and he was artistic director at Moment Factory (2004-2008).

Olivier Rhéaume is an audio artist, composer and sound designer who debuted 15 years ago in Quebec´s electronic music scene. Having a background in film studies, he went on to work on thematic multimedia shows and that led him to focus on the technical aspects of shows and artistic installations. He spent the last five years working as the audio project leader of the SAT [Immersion] department at Society for Arts and Technology/SAT in addition to being a teacher, composer and sound designer with the production team. 2014 will be his first year as a resident artist at PRIM center in Montreal, surround exploration being the subject of the project. He also performs as a solo artist under the pseudonym Ghostdog.

Velcrome, aka Marko Ritter, is a VJ and media and software engineer from Dresden. Together with the group intolight, he was involved in media art projects such as iLand, Idol Task, and CHET (in collaboration with the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau), as well as in workshops such as the Motion Bank (The Forsythe Company). intolight is an experimental design studio in Dresden with a passion for interaction and the desire to unify real and digital environments. Its work is based on the belief that immersion and playful interaction can foster understanding, learning, and involvement.

Growing as an autodidact in the cinematographic production industry, Dominic St-Amant developed several technical skills. In 2002, he creates Azile Films. In 2008, he’s invited by the Society for Arts and Technology/SAT to develop production and diffusion tools for immersive environments. After five years of research and development, he contributes to the creation of the Satosphere, where he’s now working on spherical productions and gives classes to the video artists community, while performing as a VJ artist under the pseudonym AZYL.

Ruth Schnell lives in Vienna. Her corpus of work, which includes video installations, interactive video environments, and light installations, explores the nature of human perception and the relationship between human perception and the human body. Ruth Schnell has been teaching at the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 1987; since 2010 she has been head of Digital Arts Department. Solo and group exhibitions include: Fourth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011), Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla/Biacs 3 (2009), ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2010 and 2008), Akademie der Künste Berlin (2004/05), California Science Center, Los Angeles (2004), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2002), mumok - museum moderner kunst stiftung Ludwig wien (2000), 46. Biennale di Venezia / Austrian Pavillon (1995).

Louis-Philippe St-Arnault has been directing the SAT [Immersion] Department at the Society for Arts and Technology since 2007. He was head of Satosphere project design and integration from 2008 to 2011 and now acts as program manager for its related immersive experiments and creations. In addition, he continues to design digital scenography and interactive installations, and to participate in collective creation processes. First and foremost a space and lighting designer, he has worked for the last 15 years on creating performance environments and experiential installations, and has collaborated with media artists, choreographers, designers and programmers in many countries. These projects have led him to develop a great interest in the intense physicality and the infinite space modularity of the immersive digital environment.

Ben Stern is a video artist, VJ, creative producer, curator and technician. He has spent his professional working life on a wide variety of creative projects specialising in those which combine technology and visual arts. He is co-founder of GaiaNova Ltd in 2004. GaiaNova has delivered a diverse range of large scale video projects including the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall, Illuminating York in 2009, 2011 & 2013 for York City Council, work with a wide range of artists within the contemporary music scene. Ben Stern created and produced a number of short films as well as providing assistance to other artists in the field. He acted as a co-curator and organiser of FULLDOME UK in 2010, 2011 & 2012 in partnership with Pedro Zaz and other institutions. In 2013 he co-curated a program for the Kaluga Media Arts Festival.

Alexandre St-Onge is an audio artist, a musician/improviser (acoustic bass, bass, voice and electronics) and a sound performer. He has studied literature and philosophy, and is currently completing a PhD in art. Alexandre is fascinated by creativity as a pragmatic approach to the ineffable. He has made ten solo albums, of which the most recent are: L’amitié ou les rumeurs insoutenables du désir (Squint Fucker Press), kasi naigo (Squint Fucker Press), Une mâchoire et deux trous (Namskéio Records), and Image/négation (Alien8 Recordings). He also plays in several bands, including Et Sans, K.A.N.T.N.A.G.A.N.O., Klaxon Gueule, Pink Saliva, mineminemine, Shalabi Effect, and undo. As a composer, he has worked for the interactive/mixed-media company, kondition pluriel, and artists such as Marie Brassard, Karine Denault, Lynda Gaudreau, Line Nault, Jérémie Niel, Maryse Poulin, and Mariko Tanabe.

Iouliani Theona is an Architect Engineer, having graduated from the School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a Master’s degree from the School of Architecture (National and Technical University of Athens) and a Master’s degree in Digital Communication Media and Interactive Environments at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), where she also collaborates as a researcher. Since 2009, she is a PhD candidate in the School of Architecture of the National and Technical University of Athens. Her research interests include pervasive games, locative media and hybrid spatial experiences.

David Campbell (Dancer) began his professional dance training at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, and pursued it at L’école de danse contemporaine de Montréal (formerly LADMMI). In June 2011, he participated in the performance Bodies in Urban Spaces by choreographer Willi Dormer as part of Montreal’s Festival TransAmérique. He also performed Fente-toi! and Une grande fente pour dire «allô» by the young choreographer Isabelle Boulanger. In July 2012, he collaborated with the Minutes Complètement Cirque as part as the third edition of “Montréal complètement cirque”. David Campbell danced with the company O Vertigo (Ginette Laurin) for three seasons and with the companies Fleuve Espace Danse and Cas Public.

Luke Christison is an educational technologist whose practice focuses on the use of the Full-Dome Immersive Vision Theatre (IVT) at i-DAT. He is often found delivering inspiring demonstrations to all ages about the complexities of the observable universe. He completed his BSc and MRes in digital art and technology, and has been involved in numerous i-DAT projects while also teaching visual communication, graphic design, animation, 3D game development, and the use of full-dome technologies. Luke’s research has been based on developing interactive and immersive artistic visualizations and scientific applications for the IVT to better utilize the potential of the fulldome environment.

Sébastien Gravel has been active in multimedia and digital arts for more than 14 years. During the last four years, he has specialized in immersion technology in his work as a software developer at Montreal’s Society for Arts and Technology. He is applying his expertise to human/machine interactivity in immersive environments, and in the context of the emergence of the data culture, he is exploring the ways that data can be treated, consulted, interpreted, and experienced in conditions of immersion and virtual reality. Sébastien is particularly interested in human augmentation technology and in the new relationships engendered by this increase in human capacity, along with its individual, social, and cultural impacts and philosophical implications.

Johannes Hucek studies Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and works as an artist and programmer primarily in real-time environments. His focus is on theatre, performance and interactive installations. He worked in different theaters (such as Schauspielhaus Wien, Schubert Theater Wien, Schauspielhaus Graz ...) where he was responsible for stage, video, audio, light and print design and has a background in photography (IADE – University Lisbon, Portugal) and informatics (Technical University Vienna, Austria). His recent work includes mixed reality environments, multi narrativity and co-evolutionary systems.

Patricia Köstring is a Vienna based publicist and cultural manager. In the 1990s she ran Köstring/Maier gallery in Munich, an artspace dedicated to contemporary minimalism and site-specific artistic practice (together with Stephan Maier). Since moving to Austria in 1998 she has been working in the fields of contemporary art as well as of cultural politics. Currently she is a member of the editorial board of the cultural politics reader kamion and Senior Artist at the Department of DIGITAL ART / University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she is involved in the department´s public relation issues and contributes to the implementation of international projects.

Marilou Lépine (Dancer) studied contemporary dance at The School of Dance in Ottawa. In September 2010, she worked for choreographer Yvonne Coutts, and then for Dorsale Danse, under the direction of Sylvie Desrosiers. In April 2010, she presented “corde& corps” as part of Series Dance 10 (Ottawa Dance Directive). Since then, she has created three other pieces: “Diplopie & Passion” (2011), “corps emmailloté” (2012), and “ ! ! ! ” (2013). In the summer of 2011, she worked for 10 Gates Dancing Inc., supervised by Tedd Robinson, for the “Fable” project. She is a member of the Ottawa Dance Directive company (ODD). As part of that team, she worked with a number of choreographers including Tedd Robinson, Noam Gagnon, Andrew Turner and Mélanie Demers. Marilou is interested in visual and media arts and she is also an Gyrokinesis instructor.

Cameron Micallef is an Associate Lecturer and Research Assistant at i-DAT, contributing to the development of the Immersive Vision Theatre as a Unity Developer and coder. Cameron is particularly passionate about videogame technologies, film and all round immersion to generate highly atmospheric experiences for a variety of audiences. His teaching supports the creative application of a range of programming languages to generate interactive and immersive playful spaces.

Mathieu Morasse

Lee Nutbean an interactive artist working at the transdisciplinary intersections of art and participation, across academia, research and the creative industries. His work explores the evolution of smart networked technologies (topically described as the Internet of Things (IoT)) through the participatory design of provocative prototypes, that elicit and respond to inspirational data through subversive open-ended environments. These electronic ecologies culturally probe the dynamic networks within and between corporeal and viral spaces to reveal new phenomena that confront, question and push new digital practices to innovate and inspire public engagement.

Charalampos Rizopoulos is a research associate at the Department of Communication and Media Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). He holds an MSc in Intaractive Multimedia Production (University of Huddersfield, UK). He is currently a PhD candidate, conducting research on the cognitive and emotional aspects of immersive 3D interactive environments. His research interests include interaction design for immersive virtual reality and mobile platforms, spatial cognition and environmental psychology, and computer games design. Charalampos is a research associate at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies (Cyprus University of Technology). He has participated in several national and EU-funded research and cultural projects and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery/ACM.

Penny Papageorgopoulou is an MSc. candidate in Digital Communication Media and Interactive Environments at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She received her BSc in Telecommunications Science and Technology from University of Peloponnese in 2008. Since 2009, she has been working as a teacher of Computer Science in public institutes of technical and vocational training and as a freelance visual artist.

Audrey Rochette (Dancer) leads a parallel career as an interpreter and choreographer. Since graduating from L'École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, she worked as an interpreter for Kondition Pluriel (E / M / D / L), Lucie Grégoire, Isabelle Boulanger – Compagnie La Grande Fente, Rosie Contant, Bruno Dufort, Vanessa Bousquet and Genevieve Caron-Ferron. She also participated in the filming of SIX MIL ANTENNAS (Johnny Ranger) and So certain I was, I was a horse (Emilie Serri). As a choreographer, her pieces Poros (2010), In Vitraux (2013), A Rift in the Wall (2013) and CAKE (2012 and 2014) were presented at Tangente, Phenomena festival, Zone Homa festival and Common Space. She also choreographed for the camera, including the video of the band Our Book and the Authors.

Lea Patricia Schnell has studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies and English and American Studies at the University of Vienna. She is currently an MA student working on her thesis in the field of cultural and media studies. Her research interests include visual media and digital art, as well as (post-)colonial and cultural theories.

Nikola Tasic studies digital art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His main area of interest is 3D computer graphics and their potential as a means of artistic expression. Took part in many projects related to 3D animation. Among others Quantum cinema project (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Mappa Mundi (Amour Fou). Came in second for the Ursula Blickle Foundation video award (for Werden Sie Mitglied), Vienna, July, 2009.