4PM-8PM

4pm-5.30pm Natalia Fuchs, Chris Salter, Peter Kirn “AI Aesthetics in Art” opening talk and discussion
6.30pm- 8pm Emilio Vavarella “On cyberbots, Internet animals and mechanical life: discussing the theory and practice of artistic research” artist talk moderated by Peter Kirn and Chris Salter

The group of selected artists and musicians will be part of the remote micro-residency at Transart to work on the re-enactment of the AI installations and performances and development of AI Art Manifesto that will be introduced in the public program.

Among the artists and researchers are: HEXORCISMOS (MX/DE), Isabella Salas (MX/CAN), Emilio Vavarella (IT), Ilia Symphocat (RU), Xenia Sangina (RU), Natalya Soboleva (RU).

Curated by Natalia Fuchs (ARTYPICAL, RU).

Facilitated by Peter Kirn (USA) and Chris Salter (CAN).

Several special sessions of the micro-residency will be broadcasted online.

4PM-8PM

4pm-5pm Natalya Soboleva “Artificial Intelligence: from research to art practice”
5pm-6pm Natalia Fuchs, Chris Salter, Peter Kirn “AI Art as a method” discussion
6.30pm-8pm Hexorcismos x Isabella Salas “Transfiguration” artist talk moderated by Peter Kirn and Chris Salter

The group of selected artists and musicians will be part of the remote micro-residency at Transart to work on the re-enactment of the AI installations and performances and development of AI Art Manifesto that will be introduced in the public program.

Among the artists and researchers are: HEXORCISMOS (MX/DE), Isabella Salas (MX/CAN), Emilio Vavarella (IT), Ilia Symphocat (RU), Xenia Sangina (RU), Natalya Soboleva (RU).

Curated by Natalia Fuchs (ARTYPICAL, RU).

Facilitated by Peter Kirn (USA) and Chris Salter (CAN).

Several special sessions of the micro-residency will be broadcasted online.

4PM – 8PM

4pm-5pm Ilia Symphocat x Xenia Sangina “Notation AI” artist talk moderated by Peter Kirn and Chris Salter

5pm-6pm Natalia Fuchs, Chris Salter, Peter Kirn “AI Contexts: Agency, Ownership and Data sources” discussion

6.30pm-8pm “AI Art Manifesto” presented by Natalia Fuchs, Chris Salter, Peter Kirn, Emilio Vavarella, Hexorcismos, Isabella Salas, Natalya Soboleva, Ilia Symphocat x Xenia Sangina

The group of selected artists and musicians will be part of the remote micro-residency at Transart to work on the re-enactment of the AI installations and performances and development of AI Art Manifesto that will be introduced in the public program.

Among the artists and researchers are: HEXORCISMOS (MX/DE), Isabella Salas (MX/CAN), Emilio Vavarella (IT), Ilia Symphocat (RU), Xenia Sangina (RU), Natalya Soboleva (RU).

Curated by Natalia Fuchs (ARTYPICAL, RU).

Facilitated by Peter Kirn (USA) and Chris Salter (CAN).

Several special sessions of the micro-residency will be broadcasted online.

KRANHALLE, NOI TECHPARK
Installation “DO YOU LIKE CYBER?” by Emilio Vavarella (Italy)
“DO YOU LIKE CYBER?” is a sound installation composed of three parametric speakers attached to swiveling robotic arms. Parametric speakers are similar to lasers in that they radiate sound in a single focused direction – as opposed to conventional speakers, which spread the sound in all directions. Additionally, the sound bounces off hard surfaces such as walls, creating virtual sound sources and making it difficult to detect its origin. Playing with the idea of deceitful messages, the speakers in Do You Like Cyber? broadcast a series of short audio messages that were used by AI chatbots.

18.00 – 20.00
NOISE, NOI TECHPARK
STUDIO VISITS – WHERE FUTURE HAPPENS
Moscow: ::vtol:: / Dmitry Morozov (Russia)
Cambridge, Massachusets: Joe Davis (USA)
Beijing: Lu yang (China)

20.30 – 21.15
SEMINAR 1
Artist Talk by Chris Salter (Concordia University, Canada) “AI: What’s art got to do with it?”
Artificial Intelligence has been hailed as the “next new thing” in cultural production and the art world. From Christie’s auctioning off paintings produced by machine learning algorithms to
large scale exhibitions in major museums around the world, it appears that AI has just emerged, providing unprecedented new possibilities for artistic expression with machines. But history tells a different story: artists already began to be interested in the possibilities of machine consciousness already in the 1960s within an experimental climate of experimentation within what Umberto Eco famously called “the open work” or “arte programmata” – the programmable artwork. But the AI these artists were interested in also had a different worldview – one of symbols and reason, rules and logic – a view that fit the historical Cold War moment and, at the same time, that could be rebelled against and criticized. This talk aims to compare that moment with the resurgence of AI in the arts today.

21.30 – 22.15
OPEN AIR THEATRE
NOTATION AI
AV Performanceby Symphocat (Russia) x Xenia Sangina (Russia) x MDI Ensemble (Italy)
Ilia Symphocat (Russia) x Xenia Sangina (Russia) will present “NOTATION AI” AV performance together with MDI Ensemble (Italy). “Notation_AI”, an audio-visual performance, live graphic notation created with participation of programmer Oleg Potiy, as well with support by curator Natalia Fuchs. The project arose from results of laboratory “Gamma_LAB AI ” (2019, Russia) where the dataset for the performance was created out of the music of avant-garde composers of the 20th century. At the festival TRANSART 2020, listeners and viewers will be expected to collaborate between media performers and the Italian collective of classical musicians MDI Ensemble, which will be presented as a string quartet. “NOTATION AI” is presented in collaboration with Gamma Festival (St Petersburg, Russia).

SEMINAR 1
17.30 – 17.50 Opening speech from the Arctic by Riccardo Manzotti, philosopher (Italy). “Being conscious without being alive: AI, mind, and life”
17.50 – 18.00 Opening of the congress by Roland Psenner, President at Eurac Research (Italy), and Knut Weber, artistic director at Stadttheater Ingolstadt (Germany)
18.00 – 18.20 ALONE, Asalute from Ingolstadt with Mira Fajfer actress, and Stefano di Buduo, video artist (Germany)
18.20 – 19.00 Digital humanism, Julian Nida-Rümelin, philosopher (Germany)
19.00 – 19.40 Immortality or bust, Zoltan Istvan, transhumanist (USA)

Dinner/Appetitive Break at Noisteria

20.15 – 20.45
SEMINAR 2
Transfiguration
AV Performance by HEXORCISMOS (Mexico/Germany) & Isabella Salas (Mexico/Canada)

HEXORCISMOS (MX/DE) will present AV live performance in collaboration with Isabella Salas (MX/CAN) as visual / transmedia layer creation. Musically this work is based on the album “Transfiguration”, the first full-length album from Hexorcismos’s ongoing research focused on Artificial Intelligence for raw audio synthesis. The work revolves around the idea of transfiguration, approaching the Neural Network as an alchemical technology for distillation of styles. “Transfiguration” treats the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) as a kind of homunculus able to morph one sound design aesthetic into another, while preserving the audio input’s cadence and long-form structure.

20.45 – 21.45
SEMINAR 1
AI, Alien life and the future of the mind
Susan Schneider, NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair, Library of the Congress and NASA

Augmented intelligence: How machines and humans co-create
Matthias Röder, Co-Founder of Sonophilia & The Mindshift / CEO Karajan Institute (Germany)

Living & working in the ocean
Grace Young, engineer at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory (USA)

21.45 – 22.30
SEMINAR 1
Humanity in the age of Artificial Intelligence
Discussion with: Julian Nida-Rümelin (Germany), Zoltan Istvan (USA), Grace Young (USA), Stefan Brandt (Germany), Knut Weber (Germany), Oliver Kutz (Italy).
Moderated by: Harald Pechlaner, Head of the Center for Advanced Studies, Eurac Research (Italy)

22.30 – 23.00
SEMINAR 2
Transfiguration
AV Performance by HEXORCISMOS (Mexico/Germany) & Isabella Salas (Mexico/Canada)

21.30 – 23.00
PIAZZA NOI TECHPARK
Imental Music Tape
Sound Installation by Symphocat (Russia)
Looking to the stars from deck chairs

10.00 – 18.00 
SEMINAR 2
“UNDER CONTROL I ctrl+c(ut)” Installation by ::vtol:: (RU)
The project is an abstract robotic model of a nematode worm, which the viewer needs to “cut” in a certain place with an RFID tag plastic card. Cutting a worm with a card, we are, as it were, conducting an experiment that is possible with some types of worms, in which cutting them, under the influence of regeneration, leads to the emergence of two independent individuals. When “cutting”, a digitized DNA and a mathematical model of the worm’s nervous system are recorded on the card using a special scanner/reader placed in the worm. Thus, the worm divides not only physically, but also digitally – another copy of its DNA appears, which increases the chances of preserving the species. Visitors leave the card with this data to themselves. On the one hand, this is an ironic installation on the topic of information copying, digital life, and bioinformatics. On the other hand, this is a kinetic project with a non-standard form of interactivity.

10.00 – 18.00
KRANHALLE
Installation “DO YOU LIKE CYBER?” by Emilio Vavarella (Italy)

10.00 – 18.00
NOISE, NOI TECHPARK
STUDIO VISITS – WHERE FUTURE HAPPENS
Moscow: ::vtol:: / Dmitry Morozov (Russia)
Cambridge, Massachusets: Joe Davis (USA)
Beijing: Lu yang (China)

TALKS @ SEMINAR 1

10.00 – 10.20
Machines and creativity
Holger Volland, Vice President Frankfurter Buchmesse (Germany)

10.20-10.40
Preserving vital creative energy: How to act in times of dying systems
Rob van Kranenburg, founder of Council_IoT (Netherlands)

10.40-11.00
The Joys of Not Writing: Why do we want to create art with computers?
Kathrin Passig, writer (Germany)

11.00 – 12.00
Can machines create art?
Introduction by Roland Benedikter, Co-Head of the Center for Advanced Studies, Eurac Research (Italy)
Discussion with Holger Volland (Germany), Riccardo Manzotti (Italy), Natalia Fuchs (Russia), Hoxorcismos/Moises Horta Valenzuela (Mexico/Germany), ::vtol::/Dmitry Morozov (Russia), Robin Meier (France).
Moderated by Peter Kirn, Create Digital Music (USA/Germany)

12.00 – 12.20
AI as an art collaborator
Ahmed Elgammal, computer scientist (USA)

12.20 – 12-40
Global catastrophic risks
Anders Sandberg, computational neuroscientist (UK)

12.45 – 13.10
The Future of Everything
Closing words by Jason Silva, futurist (USA)

25.09.2020 | 18.20 – 19.00
SEMINAR 1
Digital humanism
Julian Nida-Rümelin, philosopher (Germany)

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Please find the video recording of the discussion with Julian Nida-Rümelin HERE.

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Julian Nida-Rümelin teaches philosophy and political theory at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. His book Die Optimierungsfalle. Philosophie einer humanen Ökonomie has triggered intense debates on the relationship between economics and ethics. It is based on his many years of research into the theory of practical rationality at the interface between economics, game theory and philosophy. In his most recent book publications, he advocates a renewal of philosophical and political humanism (Humanistische Reflexionen, Suhrkamp, 2016), deals with the principles of a humane and diverse educational practice (three books have been published by him in 2013, 2014 and 2017), and also with the ethics of migration (Über Grenzen denken, edition Körber 2017).

In autumn 2018 a new monograph on Digitaler Humanismus: Eine Ethik für das Zeitalter der künstlichen Intelligenz (Piper Verlag) was published, for which he received the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of the year in Austria. In spring 2020 edition Körber published the book Die gefährdete Rationalität der Demokratie.

As Minister of State for Culture and Media, JNR was a member of the first Schröder cabinet. He is a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin and the European Academy of Sciences, Director at the Bavarian Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt). In 2016 the Bavarian government awarded him the Medal for Special Services to Bavaria in a United Europe. In 2019 he received the Bavarian Order of Merit. Since May 2020 he is a member of the German Ethics Council.

25.09.2020 | 21.25 – 21.45
SEMINAR 1
Living & working in the ocean
Grace Young, engineer at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory (USA)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Grace C. Young is an avid sailor, diver and National Geographic Explorer. Grace is passionate about developing technologies to help better understand, explore and manage the ocean. She earned her BSc in Mechanical & Ocean Engineering from MIT where she won the Wallace Prize as MIT’s top undergraduate in Ocean Engineering, the Keil Award for excellence in Ocean Engineering research, and the Wiesner Institute Award for advancing art and technology.

After completing her PhD at the University of Oxford as a Marshal Scholar, she joined X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory to develop technologies for ocean restoration and sustainability. Grace is the chief scientist for the Pisces VI deep sea research submarine. In 2019 she filmed the National Geographic documentary “The Secret of the Ocean” (“Il segreto degli oceani”), where she and paleontologist Federico Fanti explore connections between 300 million year old coral fossils and modern day reefs. She has developed innovative technologies for MIT, CERN, and NASA. She also helped design, build, and test submersible and aerial robots for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that monitor marine protected areas, survey endangered species, and create 3D maps of marine habitats to better measure climate change. 

A former ballerina, she’s active in the arts community and created an art exhibition of ultra slow-motion underwater photography that was selected as “Best of Oceans at MIT 2015.”  In 2014 she lived underwater for 15 days as an engineer and scientist on Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31, the youngest female Aquarius aquanaut at the time. Grace was a four-year varsity letterman on MIT’s sailing team and sailed across the Atlantic for a charity that supports youths in foster care.

Photo: ©Allegra Boverman

25.09.2020 | 17.30 – 17.50
SEMINAR 1
Opening speech from the Arctic. Being conscious without being alive: AI, mind, and life
Riccardo Manzotti, philosopher (Italy)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Riccardo Manzotti is a philosopher, psychologist, and AI expert and the author of The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One (ORBooks, NewYork, 2018) and of Dialogues on Consciousness (NY, 2018). He is professor of theoretical philosophy at the IULM University (Milan). He has been Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Department of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT (Boston).
He is executive editor of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness, has published several books and many papers on the topic of consciousness, machine consciousness, perception, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, media, and philosophy of art.

His current research focuses on the issue of consciousness and the structure of reality: What is consciousness? Is there a separation between our experience of the world and the world? Does the present have a fixed time span? Can we design and build a conscious machine? What ethical questions do consciousness and technology raise in the 21st century?
His main research areas are philosophy of mind, consciousness, machine consciousness, consciousness, psychology of perception, psychology of art, media, philosophy of communication.

25.09.2020 | 19.00 – 19.40
SEMINAR 1
Immortality or bust
Zoltan Istvan, transhumanist (USA)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Zoltan Istvan is widely recognized for spearheading the modern-day transhumanist movement, which advocates for using radical science to improve and evolve the human being. In his 20s, Zoltan started as a journalist at National Geographic Channel. Later, he became a successful real estate developer, owning many properties including vineyard entities in Argentina, California’s Napa Valley, and soon Bordeaux, France. Zoltan was also a director at a major wildlife nonprofit, WildAid. In his 30s, Zoltan began writing a science fiction novel The Transhumanist Wager, which became a Top 5 Amazon bestseller book and won awards. Zoltan’s public work has received hundreds of millions of views, much of it through his political and science activism.

He was the 2016 presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party and toured the country in the Immortality Bus, which he used to deliver the original Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol. This journey was chronicled in the award winning feature documentary IMMORTALITY OR BUST. Zoltan was also a party endorsed 2018 libertarian California Governor candidate. Zoltan has spoken at the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, Microsoft, Harvard and was the opening keynote at the Financial Times Camp Alphaville. He is a graduate of Columbia University, and lives in San Francisco with his physician wife and two young daughters. In a 5000-word feature on his work, The New York Times wrote Zoltan is “polite and charismatic” and has a “plausibly Presidential aura.”

25.09.2020 | 20.45 – 21.05
SEMINAR 1
AI, Alien life and the future of the mind
Susan Schneider, NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair, Library of the Congress and NASA

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Susan Schneider is the NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair at the Library of Congress and NASA, distinguished Scholar Chair at the Library of Congress (2019), director of the AI, Mind and Society (“AIMS”) Group at the University of Connecticut and professor for Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Connecticut. Schneider writes about the nature of the self and mind, especially from the vantage point of issues in philosophy, AI, cognitive science and astrobiology. In her recent book, Artificial You: AI and the Future of the Mind, she discusses the philosophical implications of AI, and, in particular, the enterprise of “mind design.”

As the NASA chair, Schneider has recently completed a two-year project with NASA on the future of intelligence. She now works with Congress on AI policy. She also appears frequently on television shows on stations such as PBS and The History Channel as well as keynoting conferences at places such as Harvard and Cambridge.  She also writes opinion pieces for the New York Times, Scientific American and The Financial Times. Her work has been widely discussed in the media at venues like The New York Times, Science, Big Think, Nautilus, Discover and Smithsonian.  She is currently working on a new book on the shape of intelligent systems (with W.W. Norton).

26.09.2020 | 12.45 – 13.10
SEMINAR 1
The future of everything
Closing words by Jason Silva, futurist (USA)

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Jason Silva is an Emmy-nominated and world renown TV personality, storyteller, filmmaker, and sought-after keynote speaker and futurist. Jason is known for hosting 5 seasons of the Emmy-nominated, global hit TV series Brain Games, on the National Geographic Channel, broadcasted in over 171 countries.

A global keynote speaker, Jason has given talks at events for Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Adobe, Electronic Arts, Cannes Lions, Tribeca Film Festival, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, 20th Century Fox, Cosmopolitan, PHD Worldwide, Google Zeirgesit, TED Global, The Economist, and more.

“A Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age” was how The Atlantic described Silva, “part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from ‘The Matrix.’

26.09.2020 | 12.20 – 12.40
SEMINAR 1
Global catastrophic risks
Anders Sandberg, computational neuroscientist (UK)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Anders Sandberg’s research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on management of low-probability high-impact risks, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures. Anders is a Senior Research Fellow on the ERC UnPrEDICT Programme. Topics of particular interest include global catastrophic risk, cognitive biases, cognitive enhancement, collective intelligence, neuroethics, and public policy.

He is research associate to the the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. He is on the advisory boards of a number of organisations and often debates science and ethics in international media. Anders has a background in computer science, neuroscience and medical engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, Sweden, for work on neural network modelling of human memory.

25.09.2020 | 21.05 – 21.25
SEMINAR 1
Augmented intelligence: How machines and humans co-create
Matthias Röder, Co-Founder of Sonophilia & The Mindshift / CEO Karajan Institute (Germany)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Matthias Röder is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at The Mindshift, a consultancy on creative leadership and innovation management. He holds a PhD in music from Harvard University and is an alumnus of the Mozarteum University Salzburg. Matthias currently serves as a board member of the Karajan Foundation and as a member of the board of trustees of the Mozarteum Foundation. He is the Managing Director of the Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute as well as the CEO of Karajan Cinema Classics. In 2017, Matthias founded the Karajan Music Tech Conference, a cross-industry event to promote breakthrough technologies in music, media and audio. He is also the founder of the Classical Music Hack Day series which he launched in 2013.

Together with his wife, Seda Röder, Matthias co-founded the Sonophilia Foundation, a non-profit that promotes the positive effects of creativity and critical thinking on innovation, societal well-being and personal happiness. Matthias has won numerous prizes and accolades for his work, including most recently, the “Game Changer” Award of the Chamber of Commerce Salzburg. He is a sought-after speaker and lecturer who has taught at Harvard University, the Change & Innovation Management Program at University of St. Gall, and Salzburg University.

Photo: ©Hubert Auer, Salzburg

26.09.2020 | 10.40 – 11.00
SEMINAR 1
The joys of not writing: Why do we want to create art with computers?
Kathrin Passig, writer (Germany)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Kathrin Passig, born 1970, is a pioneer of the digital age. She is co-founder of the “Zentralen Intelligenz Agentur” in Berlin and of the blog “Techniktagebuch”. In 2006 she won both the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and the audience award in Klagenfurt. Passig published among others the “Lexikon des Unwissens” (with Aleks Scholz) in 2007 and “Internet – Segen oder Fluch” (with Sascha Lobo) in 2012. In 2016 Kathrin Passig was awarded the Johann Heinrich Merck prize for literary criticism and essay.

26.09.2020 | 10.00 – 10.20
SEMINAR 1
Machines and creativity
Holger Volland, vice president Frankfurter Buchmesse (Germany)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Holger Volland serves as Vice President and member of the executive board of Frankfurter Buchmesse. He is also founder of an annual think tank event for technology in culture: THE ARTS+. As an author he publishes about digital change in culture and the creative industries. His latest book “The creative Power of Machines” (Beltz, 2018) explores the cultural aspects of artificial intelligence. Prior to joining the book fair, Holger served as head of marketing and communications with the German Booksellers and Publishers Association and head of brand communications at MetaDesign AG. Before, he led Leipziger & Partner as Managing Director, a digital marketing and communications consultancy which he founded in Berlin. He has held positions in media such as journalism, radio, television and online development and design and curated numerous exhibitions in Buenos Aires and Berlin. Holger studied information science at Freie Universität Berlin. He led the launch of the New Economy Business School as its founding director and also enjoyed a tenure as lecturer at Hochschule Wismar and Mediacampus Frankfurt.

26.09.2020 | 10.20 – 10.40
SEMINAR 1
Preserving vital creative energy: How to act in times of dying systems
Rob van Kranenburg, founder of Council_IoT

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Rob van Kranenburg (1964) is the Founder of Council_IoT (Internet of Things Council) and #iotday. He is in the Top 100 #IOT Influencers list. (10) Top 20 IIoT. He wrote The Internet of Things. A critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID, Network Notebooks 02, Institute of Network Cultures. He is co-founder of Bricolabs. Together with Christian Nold he published Situated Technologies Pamphlets 8: The Internet of People for a Post-Oil World. Rob is co-editor of Enabling Things to Talk Designing IoT solutions with the IoT Architectural Reference Model, Springer Open Access and works as Ecosystem Manager for the EU projects Tagitsmart and Next Generation Internet. He is a DeTao Master IoT.

26.09.2020 | 12.00 – 12.20
SEMINAR 1
AI as an art collaborator
Ahmed Elgammal, computer scientist (USA)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Ahmed Elgammal is an academic and artist. He is the founder and director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a professor of computer science at Rutgers University. Dr. Elgammal is also the founder of Playform, a platform that enables artist and creative professional explore integrating AI in their creative process.  Dr. Elgammal’s research on knowledge discovery in art history and AI art generation, received wide international media attention, including reports on the Washington Post, New York Times, NBC News, the Daily Telegraph, Science News, New Scientist, and many others. In 2016, a TV segment about his research, produced for PBS, won an Emmy award. His art has been shown in several technology and art venues in Los Angeles, Frankfurt, San Francisco, and New York City. 

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Please find the video recording of the discussion “Humanity in the age of AI” with Julian Nida-Rümelin, Zoltan Istvan, Grace C. Young, Stefan Brandt, Knut Weber and Oliver Kutz moderated by Harald Pechlaner HERE.

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Oliver Kutz received a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2005 (UK CPHC/BCS award), was PI in the FET Open Project COINVENT ‘Concept Invention Theory’, Program Chair of the 8th Int. Conf. on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2014), and General Chair of JOWO 2017, FOIS 2018, and EKAW 2020. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal Applied Ontology and is Associate Editor of CEUR (IAOA Series).

He is an elected member of the Executive Council of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA), for which he currently serves as Vice-President.

He is the chief organizer and scientific chair of the 2020 Bolzano Summer of Knowledge.

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Please find the video recording of the discussion “Humanity in the age of AI” with Julian Nida-Rümelin, Zoltan Istvan, Grace C. Young, Stefan Brandt, Knut Weber and Oliver Kutz moderated by Harald Pechlaner HERE.

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Stefan Brandt is director of the Futurium in Berlin since and is responsible for the thematic management of the house. Opened in September 2019, the Futurium sees itself as the house of the future: As a place of debate on foreseeable, conceivable and desirable future developments – and as a place of encounter between science, politics, business, culture and civil society. Under one roof it houses a future exhibition, a future laboratory and a future forum. In the first six months since its opening, over 500.000 people visited the Futurium in the heart of Berlin. Prior to this, the 44-year-old was managing director and board member of the Hamburger Kunsthalle from 2012 to 2017. He was responsible for a comprehensive structural modernization project, the repositioning of the Kunsthalle in the digital realm, and the redesign of its external image. He also developed various interdisciplinary program formats at the Kunsthalle, such as the “Art Lab” with the Berlin Radialsystem V.

Stefan Brandt hails from Weimar in Thuringia and studied musicology, history and communication science at the universities of Detmold/Paderborn and Basel as well as early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. In 2004 he received his doctorate at the University of Basel with a research paper on operas by the baroque composer Nicola Porpora. During his studies and his doctorate he was supported by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. From 2004 to 2011 he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in the Vienna office and managed projects in the health care sector, the chemical industry and cultural institutions. In December 2017 Stefan Brandt was appointed honorary board member of the Liz Mohn Cultural and Music Foundation, which supports cultural education initiatives throughout Germany.

Photo: ©Ali Ghandtschi

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Please find the video recording of the discussion “Humanity in the age of AI” with Julian Nida-Rümelin, Zoltan Istvan, Grace C. Young, Stefan Brandt, Knut Weber and Oliver Kutz moderated by Harald Pechlaner HERE.

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Harald Pechlaner is the head of the Center for Advanced Studies at Eurac Research and holds the chair of Tourism at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. His research area concerns the sustainable destination development, selected questions about Global Governance combined with economics and politics as well as the impact of digitalization on democracy and the economy. Since 2014 he is Adjunct Research Professor at Curtin University (Perth, Australia) and President of AIEST (Association Internationale d’Experts Scientifiques du Tourisme), the oldest tourism experts’ association based in the St. Gallen University. Furthermore, Pechlaner is leading the Competence Center for Tourism in Berlin as Scientific Director and he is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

26.09.2020 | 11.00 – 11.10
SEMINAR 1
Can machines create art?
Introduction by Roland Benedikter, Co-Head of the Center for Advanced Studies, Eurac Research (Italy)

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Please find the video recording of the talk HERE.

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Roland Benedikter, PhD, is Research Professor of Multidisciplinary Political Analysis in residence at the Willy Brandt Centre of the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and Co-Head of the Center for Advanced Studies of Eurac Research Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. He is a member of the “Zukunftskreis” of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Berlin.

25.09.2020 | 18.00 – 18.20
SEMINAR 1
ALONE, A salute from Ingolstadt
with Mira Fajfer actress, and Stefano Di Buduo, video artist (Germany)

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The video recording of the opening of the Futurological Congress including ALONE can be found HERE.

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Mira Fajfer was born in Szczecin (Poland) in 1991. She studied acting at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen/Bochum from 2010 to 2014. During her acting studies Mira Fajfer performed among others at the Schauspielhaus Bochum and the Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. In 2011 she received the Excellence Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation and in 2014 the 1st Ensemble Prize of the Friedl-Wald Foundation at the 24th Meeting of Acting Schools.

From 2014 to 2019 she was a permanent ensemble member at the Ingolstadt Theatre, where she appeared as Ophelia in “Hamlet”, Lena in “Leonce and Lena”, Lämmchen in Fallada’s “Kleiner Mann, was nun?” and as a pilot in the monologue evening “AM BODEN”. Important collaborations have taken place with directors such as Alexander Nerlich, Brit Bartkowiak, Christoph Mehler and Wolfgang Menardi. For her last season at the Ingolstadt Theatre, Mira Fajfer was awarded the Theatre Audience Prize. Since the 19/20 season she has been working as a freelance actress.

25.09.2020 | 18.00 – 18.20
SEMINAR 1
ALONE, A salute from Ingolstadt
with Mira Fajfer actress, and Stefano Di Buduo, video artist (Germany)

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The video recording of the opening of the Futurological Congress including ALONE can be found HERE.

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Stefano Di Buduo is a German-Italian video artist, documentary filmmaker and photographer. After studying “Arts and Sciences of the Digital Performance” at the Università La Sapienza in Rome, where he also founded the multimedia company AESOPSTUDIO in 2008, his projects have taken him to France, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, USA, China, India, Iran and time and again to Germany and Italy. From 2005 he was engaged for many years as multimedia artist for the urban space project “Città Invisibili” (Invisible Cities) of the Italian Teatro Potlach, with guest performances in many cities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

In 2009 Di Buduo created the virtual underwater world for the award-winning play “20,000 Miles Under the Sea” (after Jules Verne/Teatro Potlach). This was followed by video installations and video mappings in the context of international festivals and events such as “Vision of Odin” in Holstebro/Denmark, “Incubatio” in the Museo Nazionale Svevo of Manfredonia/Italy and the video mapping at the metro station Battistini in Rome.

He has a continuous cooperation with the directors Donald Berkenhoff, Yael Ronen and Brit Bartkowiak as well as with the outfitter and director Wolfgang Menardi. Most recently he has worked at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus, the Berliner Ensemble, the Munich Kammerspiele, the Stadttheater Ingolstadt and the Schauspiel Hannover.

Lu Yang (b. Shanghai, China) is a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Mortality, androgyny, hysteria, existentialism and spiritual neurology feed Lu’s jarring and at times morbid fantasies. Also taking inspiration and resources from Anime, gaming and Sci-fi subcultures, Lu explores his fantasies through mediums including 3D animation, immersive video game installation, holographic, live performances, virtual reality, and computer programming. Lu has collaborated with scientists, psychologists, performers, designers, experimental composers, Pop Music producers, robotics labs, and celebrities throughout his practice.

Lu Yang has held exhibitions at UCCA (Beijing), MWoods (Beijing), Cc Foundation (Shanghai), Spiral (Tokyo), Fukuoka Museum of Asian Art (Fukuoka, Japan), Société (Berlin), MOCA Cleveland (Cleveland, Ohio). He has participated in several international biennials and triennials such as 2012 & 2018 Shanghai Biennial, 2018 Athens Biennale, 2016 Liverpool Biennial, 2016 International Digital Art Biennale (Montreal), Chinese Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, and 2014 Fukuoka Triennial. In 2019, Lu became the 8th BMW Art Journey winner and started the Yang Digital Incarnation project.

While earning his Creative Arts degree (1973) from Mt Angel College in Oregon, Joe Davis pioneered sculptural methods in laser carving at Bell Telephone Laboratories and University of Cincinnati Medical Center Laser Laboratory. In 1981, he joined MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies as Research Fellow and Lecturer. Davis’ work has had strong focus in astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life. In 1986, Davis created Microvenus, the first genetically engineered work of art. His Poetica Vaginal (1986-7) and Rubisco Stars (2009), were the most powerful and longest-duration radio messages ever transmitted to other stars. Davis joined Alexander Rich’s laboratory at MIT in 1989 where he is widely regarded to have founded new fields in art and biology. While at Rich Lab, Davis attached fishing rods and miniscule fish hooks to his microscopes and developed other whimsical instruments to resolve mechanical and acoustic signatures of microorganisms. His projects involving “DNA programming languages” for inserting poetic texts and graphics into DNA have been frequently cited in scientific literature. In 2010, he joined the laboratory of George Church at Harvard as “Artist Scientist.” In 2011, Davis worked with collaborators at Harvard and the Japanese National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences to genetically modify silkworms in order to produce transgenic silks bio-mineralized with metallic gold. Davis enjoys simultaneous affiliations with Ashley Seifert Laboratory at University of Kentucky, where Davis and colleagues have been investigating genetics of serendipity using mouse-driven mechanical dice-throwing apparatus, and with Thomas Schwartz Laboratory at MIT Biology where he produced the world’s first macroscopic “memory crystals” of information-bearing DNA in 2017. In 2019 Davis collaborated with colleagues at Harvard, MIT, the Indian National Center for Biological Sciences, and SK Biolabs in Moscow, Russia to insert 3-, and 4-dimensional data into extremely robust, salt-loving organisms. Davis’ information-keeping extremophiles are now embedded into crystals of mineral salt where they are expected to persist for hundreds of millions of years. Davis has also created large public sculpture and pedestrian lighting at Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As a media artist, for three last years Xenia has completed a number of projects for festivals Metaxis, Science Fest, Tech Weekend, Night of Lights in Gatchina, The Night of Museums, Inversia, series of audiovisual concerts Classic Electric and other. As a video artist, Xenia is constantly involved in various audiovisual events. As a curator, she organized 4 conceptual exhibitions of works her students,who were attending her course “Visual programing”, developed visual concepts for a “Сlassic Ectric” event series . Also, Xenia periodically gives lectures about technologies in digital art at various venues.

Dmitry Morozov aka ::vtol:: (b.1986, Moscow) is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher. He focuses on contemporary media arts including sound, robotics and installation, placing special emphasis on the link between emergent systems and new kinds of technological synthesis.

His works have been exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide, including the NCCA, MMOMA, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Tretyakov State Gallery, Electromuseum, Laboratoria Art&Science Space (Moscow), Laznia Center for Contemporary Arts (Gdansk), ZKM Zentrum (Karlsruhe), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (Boulder), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taichung), Kapelica gallery (Ljubljana), ArtScience Museum (Singapore) etc., in 4th MBCA (Moscow), SIGGRAPH 2016 (Anaheim) and in festivals such as Mirage (Lyon), Ars Electronica (Linz), Future Everything (Manchester) and CTM (Berlin).

He is the award winner of the Sergei Kuryokhin Prize (Russia, 2013), Prix Cube (France, 2014) and also received honorary mentions at VIDA 16.0 (Spain, 2014) and Prix Ars Electronica (Austria, 2015, 2017).

Artist and composer, Robin Meier explores the emergence of natural and artificial intelligence and the role of humans in a world of machines. Meier tries to make sense of these questions through musical compositions and installations. Referred to as “Artist of the future” (le Monde), “Maestro of the swarm” (Nature) or simply “pathetic” (Vimeo) his works have been shown internationally, in institutions such as Palais de Tokyo, FIAC and Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Art Basel, Switzerland, the 11th Shanghai Biennale, Arsenal Contemporary New York City or the Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan. Robin Meier is a longtime collaborator at IRCAM / Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Fellow of the Istituto Svizzero di Roma (2018/2019).

Young researcher in the field of machine learning. A member of Advanced Data Analytics in Science and Engineering Group at Skoltech as well as part of the laboratory of the “Informatics and Management” Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Participant of various conferences and projects related to artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as automatic trajectory planning, 3D geometrics, recognizing emotions using electroencephalograms, and others. Slowly growing awareness in the field of Art&Science.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Isabella moved to Montreal, Canada in 2001 to follow her major in Film Production at Concordia University.

Her curiosity and method drive her work into an organic relationship between storytelling, indigenous culture and values, nature, science and technology.

In 2011, heavily influenced by the movement Salvemos a Wirikuta, and driven by the loss of indigenous languages  Isabella started a personal quest to help create, produce and disseminate pieces of indigenous worlds in their own language and made by members of the communities in collaboration with other creative forces.

She was producer for the Opening Ceremony for the 2015 Panamerican games in Toronto, the Another Brick in the Wall Opera and MGM Macau immersive theater visuals.

In 2018, she decided to step down and start creating her own ideas surrounded in collaboration with other talented artists.

That year, Isabella discovered she has sound to visual synaesthesia during the creation of Human Instrument, a live cymatic dome showing uniting different styles of voices to visualize the effect of sound projected onto liquids in our environment.

This project aimed to represent  diversity and inclusion through the sound of our voices. Part of the soundtrack for this piece was made with water prayers in Ojibwe and Cree languages to represent our indigenous ancestors.

In the midst of the lockdown, she started learning artificial intelligence as a tool for artistic creation. Since then has participated in Mutek AI Lab (CA), Gamma Lab XR (RU), AI for people coding lab (GER) and presenting at Mapp MTL festival to map her art on some large walls to inspire people from their windows.

She is also working on  “The other side” XR augmented gallery space presenting some of her most recent collaborations with 11 visual and sound artists from around the world to exhibit  collectively during the Gamma Festival (RU) in Sept 2020 .

Parallel to this project, She is now co-creating an AI Live show, with Moises Horta Valenzuela aka Hexorcismos,  to be presented at the  TransArt Festival (IT) in Sept 2020 as well.

Symphocat is a creative project of musician and composer Ilia Pucheglazov, from Rostov-on-Don, Russia. During collecting of influence Ilia has experienced in many stylistic influences genres of electronic dance music, but nowadays Symphocat is most strongly associated with meditative Ambient, Drone, Experimental music with Field Recordings, which are interweaving on the border of Modern Classical music and Minimalism. In his works can find collaborations with free ensembles, improvising choirs, dance performers. As sound director Ilia worked with sound for fiction and documentary films. Symphocat is actively touring and takes part in major festivals and concerts at various venues. For example live acts from Symphocat can be heard on the stages of city parks, cultural institutions, art museums, philharmonic halls or underground raves in industrial locations (Gamma Festival, Synthposium, Fields, Acousmonium, Inversia, Horizon, etc.). Since 2007 Ilia working as curator of own music label Simphonic Silence Inside where for creative community of artists he organizing audio-visual concerts, music tours and with label SSI taking a part in cultural program of Saint-Petersburg Sound Museum (ESG-21) and Art-Center “Pushkinskaya-10”.

Especially for TRANSART festival, Ilia will show a performance NOTATION_AI, which is prepared jointly in collaboration with video artist Xenia Sangina. Second project on festival will feature sound installation “Imental Music”.

links:
www.symphocat.bandcamp.com
www.symphocat.com
www.facebook.com/symphocat

Hexorcismos aka Moisés Horta Valenzuela is a Berlin based artist originally from the border cities of Tijuana, México and San Diego (US).  He’s a creative technologist, sound artist and electronic musician. His project HEXORCISMOS explores Cybernetic and Neuronal Intelligences, creating borderless A/V based realities deployed via AI/ML, XR and Spatial Sound; approaching these technologies from a decolonial theory perspective by the creation of conceptual tension between sci-fi utopian and dystopian narratives. Performances and artworks have been presented at MUTEK AI Art Lab Montréal (2020), Monom 4D Sound Berlin (2019), CTM Festival Music Makers Hacklab Berlin (2018), Rum/Klang Galerie Denmark (2018) and ElektronMusikStudion Stockholm (2017).

Emilio Vavarella is an artist whose work blends interdisciplinary art practice and theoretical research and is centered around the study of the relationship between humans and technological power. Emilio is currently working toward a PhD in Film and Visual Studies and Critical Media Practice at Harvard University. He holds an M.A. cum laude in Visual Arts from Iuav University of Venice, with study abroad fellowships at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Tel Aviv and Bilgi University of Istanbul and received a B.A. cum laude in Visual, Cultural, and Media Studies from the University of Bologna. Emilio has been awarded numerous art prizes and grants, among which the prestigious Italian Council award (2019); Premio Fattori Contemporaneo (2019); SIAE – Nuove Opere (2019); the NYSCA Electronic Media and Film Finishing Funds grant (2016); the Francesco Fabbri Prize for Contemporary Art (2015) and the Movin’Up Grant (2015). Esteemed venues that have exhibited Emilio’s work include: MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo; KANAL – Centre Pompidou; MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; The Photographer’s Gallery, Museo de Arte de Caldas; Villa Manin; Museo Nacional Bellas Artes in Santiago; National Art Center of Tokyo; Eyebeam Art and Technology Center; Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Fondazione Studio Marangoni and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. His artworks have been exhibited at many of the most prestigious festivals of media arts, among which: EMAF – European Media Art Festival; JMAF – Japan Media Arts Festival; Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Media; BVAM – Media Art Biennale; and NYEAF New York Electronic Arts Festival. More recently, his first art film, Animal Cinema, was screened at several film festivals, among which the Torino Film Festival, Toronto’s Images Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival.

Chris Salter is an artist, full professor of computation arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Co-Director of the Hexagram network for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology. He completed his PhD in directing/dramatic criticism at Stanford University where he also researched and studied at CCMRA. Early in his career he also collaborated with Peter Sellars and William Forsythe/Frankfurt Ballet. His work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, LLUM BCN, Wiener Festwochen, Berliner Festspiele, Muffathalle, Vitra Design Museum, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, HAU-Berlin, BIAN 2014 (Montreal), LABoral, Lille 3000, CTM Berlin, National Art Museum of China, Ars Electronica, Villette Numerique, Todays Art, EXIT Festival, among many others. He is the author of Entangled (MIT Press, 2010) and Alien Agency (MITP, 2015). His new book Sensing Machines on machine and human sensing will appear from MIT Press in 2021

Natalia Fuchs is new media researcher, art historian and international curator. She was graduated from the University of Manchester (MA Cultural Management) and from the Danube University (MA MediaArtHistories) in Austria.

Between 2009 and 2013, she was developing the Media Forum at the Moscow International Film festival, and the contemporary art fair VIENNAFAIR. In 2013 Natalia has founded art relations practice ARTYPICAL, and then was appointed as Curator of the Polytechnic Museum (Moscow)—where apart from the exhibitions (Earth Lab co-curated with Ars Electronica, On the Origin of the New at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and others), she curated Polytech.Science.Art interdisciplinary program in 2013-2016. In 2015 program received diploma of the Ministry of Culture as “The best educational museum project”.

In 2016-2018 Natalia Fuchs was curator, head of the multimedia art department and deputy director of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Moscow, Russia, where she launched TECHNE platform for innovative art. Starting from 2017, Natalia is also teaching Media Art History at the Moscow State University (World Art History department).

In 2018-2020 she was curator and co-producer of Gamma Festival and Gamma_Pro, international conference on art and technology (Saint Petersburg, Russia). In 2019-2020 she was creative director for for MUTEK Arab Emirates, the festival of electronic music and digital creativity. She is curating and co-producing international Laboratories of art and technology – such as Gamma_LAB AI (2019) for Gamma Festival and Mutek.JP AI Music Lab for Mutek Japan (2019). Natalia Fuchs is creator of Mutek AI Art Lab (2020) by the invitation of MUTEK Montreal. Besides curating, Natalia is producing own AV performances (behaviours w/Sonia Cillari, 2015) and video-artworks (Times Connection for Everyday Transformations, 2018).

Her latest international projects include an exhibition of technological art “Open Codes – Living in Digital Worlds” at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Germany (co-curated with Peter Weibel), anniversary exhibition of CTM Festival in Berlin “Persisting Realities” and INPUT annual international digital art symposium of the Lunchmeat Festival at the National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic. Also she worked as Advisor for Barbican Centre (London, UK) for the Artificial Intelligence exhibition “AI: More Than Human” that was launched in 2019 and became curator of Futurological Congress 2020 in the frame of Transart Festival for Contemporary Culture in Bolzano, Italy.

Currently Natalia Fuchs is Director of Media Art Center for research and methodology in Moscow and Creative Producer at the Department of Culture of Moscow. Since 2020 she is also a member of IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.

PETER KIRN is a producer/DJ, technologist, and journalist. He is a prolific music artist himself, and also builds platforms around new use of technology in music.

Classically trained as a composer and pianist, Kirn now produces adventurous techno and experimental music. Collaborative projects include Nerk/Kirn (V-Records, Snork Enterprises, with Nerk of Toktok fame), Alchemic Harm (dark ambient work, with a release with Lower Order Ethics), work with contemporary dance, sound art, and a collaboration with Robert Lippok (raster-noton), including a project on the 4DSOUND spatial audio system with architect Arno Brandhlhuber. He also releases solo techno and experimental music.

He has for over a decade run CDM (createdigitalmusic.com) which has evolved into a daily destination for analysis of cutting-edge use of technology in all aspects of music. He is also co-creator with engineer James Grahame of the award-winning MeeBlip line of hardware synthesizers.

He has collaborated with the European Space Agency, Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, and various festivals and conferences (TED, South by Southwest, re:publica), and produced workshops and open performance laboratories (MusicMakers Hacklab) around the world.