Pol Jeremias – ShaderToy & Pixar

BIO

Pol Jeremias lives for real-time graphics. He grew up in Barcelona, but his desire to research and create real-time graphics brought him to California in 2006. After completing his Master’s degree in Computer Science at University of Southern California, he joined LucasArts where he worked on rendering technology for Star Wars 1313, as well as other games. Today, he works at Pixar Animation Studios where he develops rendering algorithms to help the artists make movies. He is credited in multiple movies, including Finding Dory.

In his spare time, Pol is a co-founder at Shadertoy.com, a website that enables graphics enthusiasts to create, learn, and share rendering knowledge. Since 2012, he’s been actively involved with SIGGRAPH, directing Real-Time Live! in 2016 and the Computer Animation Festival in 2017. When he is not programming, you will find him running, watching movies, or drinking coffee.

Juan Miguel de Joya

Juan is a technical director, software engineer, and researcher specializing in computer graphics, machine learning, and mixed reality experiences. He currently works for DigitalFish at Facebook creating bleeding edge mixed reality experiences, and is the VR Showcase Chair for SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Bangkok, Thailand. In his downtime he develops intelligent training and control software for prototyping bionic hands in AR, puts together tech/art installations exploring the human impact of computing, and serves on the Professional Development Committee of the ACM Practitioner’s Board as well as having leadership and expertise roles within ACM SIGGRAPH. Previously, Juan was an undergraduate researcher at the Visual Computing Lab of the University of California, Berkeley under Professor James F. O’Brien, studied under four-time Academy Award winning sound designer Mark Berger, and worked at both Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, and DigitalFish at Google Spotlight Stories.

Ina Conradi and Mark Chavez – NTU

Ina Conradi’s works have been screened at over 50 film festivals and exhibited at over 40 exhibitions internationally among others the 67th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Ars Electronica Festival, ZKM, Siggraph Asia Hong Kong, 3D Stereo MEDIA Liège, Women 3D directors Paramount Studios Hollywood, FMX Conference Stuttgart. Currently Associate Professor at the Nanyang Technological University Singapore her recent community-forming project features designing for an expanded media experiences for public space.

Mark Chavez is an animator, artist, educator and entrepreneur who has developed systems and techniques for animation across various media. Recruited by DreamWorks SKG (1995-2001), he worked on visual effects for a number of their fully animated films. At the original Rhythm and Hues Studios in Playa Vista (2002-05), where he worked on visual effects for numerous big budgets, award winning live-action films. Animation industry veteran and founding faculty at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media’s Digital Animation area, he is currently based in Singapore, founder of Giant Monster Inc., consulting on Ed Tech start-up on games, animation-based public art installations.

Media Art Nexus, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Based in Singapore, Media Art Nexus NTU is one of NTU Art and Heritage Museum’s various Art on Campus initiatives. It was conceived by award-winning artists Ina Conradi and Mark Chavez who both obtained their Masters of Fine Arts from UCLA.

June Kim – UNSW

June Kim, an interactive artist who currently carries out PhD at the UNSW Art & Design. Her research interest lies in the Virtual Reality as an artistic medium to practice and research in the notion of relationality between ‘I’ and ‘surroundings’.

Her works and talks were presented in various conferences and festivals including SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, FMX, ISEA, SAS, Seoul Forum, VRCAI, Web3D and OnOff 1001010 Symposium.

Liming Zhu – Data61

Liming Zhu leads the Software and Computational Systems Research Program (one of the four programs) at Data61, CSIRO. The research program has 200+ people innovating in the following (but not limited to) research areas: big data analytics infrastructure, computational and simulation sciences platforms (including verticals such as image processing and biological data visualisation, molecular and material modelling), data modelling, data integration, data platforms, visual analytics, trustworthy systems, distributed systems, business process management, legal informatics/regulation technology, provenance, behaviour analytics, blockchains, software ecosystems, software engineering/architecture, DevOps and cybersecurity. 

Data61 is part of The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Australia’s data/ICT innovation hub. Data61 was formed bringing together CSIRO’s Digital Productivity team and National ICT Australia (NICTA).

Liming is also a conjoint full professor at School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales. He teaches software architecture courses and supervise PhD students at UNSW. He has supervised 7 PhDs to completion as the primary supervisor. His personal research interests include: software architecture in enterprise systems and embedded systems, dependable and secure distributed systems, DevOps, SecDevOps and continuous deployment, (big) data analytics infrastructure, data analytics pipelines and data provenance, data platforms, blockchain-driven systems, software engineering for machine-learning based systems, software ecosystems, multi-sided platforms and Ultra-Large-Scale systems, service/cloud engineering and RESTful services, Model Driven Development(MDD), business process management, system and software development processes and methodologies, empirical methods in software engineering

Ollie Bown – UNSW Sydney

BIO

I am a researcher and maker working with creative technologies. I come from a highly diverse academic background spanning social anthropology, evolutionary and adaptive systems, music informatics and interaction design, with a parallel career in electronic music and digital art spanning over 15 years. I am interested in how artists, designers and musicians can use advanced computing technologies to produce complex creative works. My current active research areas include media multiplicites, musical metacreation, the theories and methodologies of computational creativity, new interfaces for musical expression, and multi-agent models of social creativity.

Following a bachelors in mathematics and social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a masters in evolutionary and adaptive systems at the University of Sussex, I undertook a PhD looking at simulation models of the evolution of human musical behaviour at the Intelligent Sound and Music Systems group, Goldsmiths College, London, under the supervision of Professor Geraint Wiggins. In 2008 I moved to Melbourne, Australia, to work as postdoctoral research assistant with Jon McCormack at Monash University, working on an ARC Discovery Project that looked at ecosystemic approaches to digital creativity. Then in 2011 I took a lectureship at the Design Lab at the University of Sydney, followed by a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship supported by the University of Sydney. In 2015 I took a position at UNSW.

During this time I have played in a number of improvied music ensembles, most notably my electronic music duo Icarus (with Sam Britton), the Not Applicable Artists Collective (with Sam Britton, Tom Arthurs, Lothar Olhmeier, Maurizio Ravalico, Britt Hatzius, Martin Hampton, Rudi Fischerlehner and Oliver Dukert), and Tangents (with Peter Hollo, Adrian Lim-Klumpes, Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian). I am also a collaborating member of the digital interactive art group Squidsoup, and have collaborated with many artsits, musicians and designers on digital interactive artworks.

I am a founding member of the Musical Metacreation Research Network, a member of the steering committee for the International Conference on Computational Creativity, and a creative advisor to the University of Sydney Vivid Festival.

Quang Vinh Nguyen – Western Sydney University,

BIO

Dr. Quang Vinh Nguyen is a senior lecturer in visual analytics whose research contributions and interests are in visual analytics and information visualisation. His focus is to find effective visualisations to support the analysis of large and complex datasets, particularly genomic and biomedical data, health data, network data and other application based data. He received his Ph.D. in Computing Sciences at University of Technology, Sydney in 2006 developing space-efficient visualization of large hierarchies. Prior to his current position lecturer and senior lecturer at Western Sydney University, he was a post-doctoral fellow at University of Technology, Sydney from 2006-2008. He also experienced multiple research and professor visiting positions at various institutions and organizations, including University of Texas at Dallas, USA, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas, USA and Tianjin University, China.

For his academic career, he has authored and co-authored over 90 refereed publications, including edited book, book chapters, journals and conference papers relating to this research field. He has received multiple awards and research funding, such as “Big Data, Big Impact” Stages 1 & 2 Grants at Cancer Institute of NSW, and Oracle Funding Support for big data research. He has been successful supervised as well as is being supervising several research students. Dr. Nguyen has almost 10 years teaching experiences on variety of computing subjects, such as the recent subjects in mobile applications development, computer graphics, visualisation and visual analytics.

Rob Manson – awe.media

BIO

Rob is the original evangelist for Mixed/Extended Reality (AR & VR) using open web standards. He’s an invited expert with the W3C, the Khronos group and the ISO. He’s been involved in Mixed Reality research and development for the last 12 years. Rob believes the creation of immersive experiences should be democratized and available to everyone. In 2009 he lead the team that launched the world’s first web-based AR Content Creation platform (buildAR.com). Now, Rob is the CEO & co-founder of the https://awe.media platform which gives you the power to create, view and share Mixed or Extended Reality using your web browser. It makes it easy to add 3D models, animations, event driven information and actions to your creations without any coding required. Or you can use the open source awe.js API to add your own custom functionality. All without any app store downloads, installs or updates. And that’s just the start….

Miles Green – Animal Logic

BIO

Miles first joined Animal Logic in 2004 and currently supervises and leads the FX Department in developing effects such as fire, smoke, explosions, water, fractals and more for a variety of animated features and complex VFX film projects. Prior to joining Animal Logic, Miles worked at a number of companies based in London. Early in his career, he also taught 3D to students at the well established National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University in the UK.

His recent credits include The LEGO Ninjago Movie, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, The LEGO Batman Movie. Previous credits include Legend of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole and the Academy Awardâ winning Happy Feet.

Miles holds a degree with 1st Class Honours in Computer Visualisation and Animation and a Masters in 3D Computer Animation from the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University in the UK.

Dadong Wang – Data61

BIO

Dr Dadong Wang is the leader of the CSIRO Quantitative Imaging Research Team, part of the CSIRO Data61. The research team has extensive experience and a track record in developing intelligent end-to-end imaging and image analysis solutions and via collaboration with innovation partners bring them to the market.

Dadong is also an adjunct Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and a Conjoint Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). His main research interests include image analysis, computer vision, artificial intelligence, signal processing and software engineering. He has been developing automated image analysis solutions for scientific and industrial applications, with the aim of increasing both quality and quantity of information extracted from multi-dimensional image data.

Michael Harvey – ANMM

BIO

Michael Harvey has worked in the fields of museums and science communication for 20 years. Prior to taking up his current role at the Maritime Museum, Michael worked as Head of Exhibitions at the Australian Museum and at the Natural History Museum in London, where he managed science communication programs and developed concepts for new galleries. Michael has also travelled around Australia as a member and a coordinator of the Shell Questacon Science Circus, has taught in Museum Studies at the universities of Leicester and Sydney, and is a past president of Australasian Network of Science and Technology Exhibitors. Beginning with university studies in Zoology and the History of Science, Michael’s key interests now lie in the museums field, and in exploring the ways museums can engage with their audiences, create memorable experiences and widely share their collections and their research.

Anna Munster – UNSW

BIO

Anna Munster is a professor in Art and Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. Her book, An Aesthesia of Networks (MIT Press, 2013) explores expressions of networks beyond the ‘link-node’ image and new understandings of experience that account for relationality in contemporary assemblages of human and nonhuman technics. She is also the author of Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics (2006), which won a ‘highly commended’ in the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica Media Research category.  Munster is also a practicing media artist who regularly collaborates with Michele Barker. Their media environments explore animal, human and more-than-human movement and perception with a newly commissioned work, pull in the Experimenta Triennale of Media Arts.

Jill Bennett – UNSW

BIO

Jill’s research focuses on the use of art and technology in advancing understandings of human subjective experience. She is the author of seven books and has developed numerous exhibitions and interactive media projects investigating aspects of memory, trauma and psychological health.

Jill is developing the Asia-Pacific Arts for Health Festivals, which will initially focus on Anxiety (2017) and Dementia (2018), showcasing the transformational projects in mental health and ageing.

Martin Tomitsch – Sydney University

BIO

Dr Martin Tomitsch is an Associate Professor in Design and the Head of Design Lab at the University of Sydney, where he teaches interaction design and human-computer interaction. He is the Director of the Design Computing program and a member of the Design Lab, an interdisciplinary research group within the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning.
His primary research interest is the application of user-centred interaction design methods and the study of user behaviours to inform the development of novel interfaces and interaction techniques for everyday life. In his research work he emphasises the design and evaluation of new approaches to human-computer interaction.

He is co-author of ‘New Media Facades’ published by av edition and over sixty articles published in journals and academic conferences. He holds a visiting lecturer appointment with the Research Group for Industrial Software (INSO) at the Vienna University of Technology, is a founding member of the Media Architecture Institute (MAI), NSW state co-chair for the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA), and committee member of several international workshops and conferences.

Prior to commencing his position at the University of Sydney, he worked as interface designer in large software and IT projects.

For more information, please visit Martin’s personal webpage

Marcus Foth – QUT

BIO

Marcus Foth is Professor of Urban Informatics in the QUT Design Lab, Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. He is also an Honorary Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Professor Foth’s research brings together people, place, and technology. His transdisciplinary work is at the international forefront of human-computer interaction research and development with a focus on smart cities, community engagement, media architecture, internet studies, ubiquitous computing, and sustainability.
Professor Foth founded the Urban Informatics Research Lab at QUT in 2006. Ahead of their time and before the term “smart cities” became popular, the lab pioneered a new field of study and practice: Urban informatics examines people creating, applying and using information and communication technology and data in cities and urban environments.

Caroline Rae – UNSW

BIO

Lindy is a biochemist who uses the non-invasive techniques of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Spectroscopy (MRS) to study how molecules in the brain change under workload and in disease.

Lindy develops innovative data visualisation techniques to understand and demonstrate brain function and organisation. She is also involved in a range of collaborative projects across basic and more applied research, centred around the use of magnetic resonance technology both in vivo and in vitro.

Paul Thomas – UNSW

Dr Paul Thomas, is Professor of Fine Art, University of New South Wales. His current practice led research takes not only inspiration from nanoscience and quantum theory, but actually operates there. His publications include Nanoart: The Immateriality of Art, Relive Media Art Histories, co-edited with Sean Cubitt, Interference Strategies and Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics. His latest book Quantum Art and Uncertainty is to be published in 2018.

Kristine Howard – YOW!

Kris has been working in the tech industry for over twenty years, most recently wrangling engineers at Canva, one of Australia’s fastest growing startups. She now heads up Developer Relations for YOW Conferences, meeting and working with tech teams around the country. She’s a frequent speaker at meetups and events across Australia and Asia, including TEDx Melbourne 2016. She’s also a Maker and one of the few people to ever lug a sewing machine to a hackathon.

Raven Kwok

Raven Kwok (aka Guo, Ruiwen) is a visual artist, animator and programmer. His artistic and research interest mainly focus on exploring generative visual aesthetic brought by computer algorithms and software processes. In 2014, Kwok graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with the M.F.A. degree in Electronic Arts. His works has been screened and exhibited at festivals including Ars Electronica, Vienna Independent Shorts Film Festival (VIS), Resonate, Punto y Raya Festival, Electronic Language International Festival (FILE), FIBER, Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF), Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF), etc.  More details: http://ravenkwok.com/

Max Hattler – City University of Hong Kong

Max Hattler is an artist and academic who works with abstract animation, video installation and audiovisual performance. He holds a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art and a Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of East London. Max has lectured at CalArts, USC, Goldsmiths, KASK and many more. His work has been shown at festivals and institutions such as Resonate, Ars Electronica, ZKM Center for Art and Media, MOCA Taipei and Beijing Minsheng Museum. Awards include Supernova, Cannes Lions, Bradford Animation Festival and several Visual Music Awards. Max has performed live around the world including at Playgrounds Festival, Re-New Copenhagen, Expo Milan, Seoul Museum of Art and the European Media Art Festival. He lives in Hong Kong where he is an Assistant Professor at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Max’s current research focuses on synaesthetic experience and visual music, the narrative potential of abstract animation, and expanded artistic approaches to binocular vision.

Jennifer Nikolai – AUT

Jennifer Nikolai (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer, contemporary dance practitioner and researcher.  Her studio-based, emergent methodology informs live and digital interactivity in performance making and staging.  Her research spans mobile camera improvisation, motion capture and VR, as well as learning and teaching in a range of contexts.  She conducts research in Canada and New Zealand, her country of origin and her country of residency, respectfully.  Jennifer lectures and supervises in the School of Sport and Recreation and in the School of Art and Design at AUT, Auckland, NZ.

Andrew Denton – AUT

Andrew Denton is a film and video artist who works in digital, analogue, and interactive media.  His research interests include: cinematic practices in relation to ecological concerns, experimental cinema and live performance particularly dance that integrates with mixed media, such as performance capture and live video.

Andrew is Associate Head of School: Postgraduate and International, at the School of Art and Design: AUT University, in Auckland, New Zealand.  He lectures on practice-oriented research methods, cinematic arts, and supervises on PhD and Masters projects.

Victoria Vesna – UCLA

Victoria Vesna is an artist and professor at UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and Director of the Art|Sci Center at the School of the Arts (North campus) and California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)
With her installations, Vesna investigates how communication technologies affect collective behavior and perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation (PhD, CAiiA_STAR, University of Wales, 2000). Her work involves long-term collaborations with composers, nano-scientists, neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists and she brings this experience to students. Victoria has exhibited her work in 20+ solo exhibitions, 70+ group shows, has been published in 20+ papers and gave 100+ invited talks in the last decade. She is the North American editor of AI & Society journal (Springer Verlag, UK) and in 2007 published an edited volume – Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow (Minnesota Press) and another in 2011 — Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts. (co-edited with Christiane Paul and Margot Lovejoy) Intellect Ltd, 2011. Currently she is working on a series Art Science & Technology based on her online lecture class.

Website: www.victoriavesna.com

Martina Fröschl – University of Applied Arts Vienna

Martina R. Fröschl, MSc is a digital artist focusing on computer animation and artistic science visualization. She studied Media Technique in St. Pölten and Media Design in Hagenberg, Austria and graduated in 2009. For her project participation as visual effects and 3D artist in film and tv productions, she obtained practice experience already during her student days and ever since. Besides her visual effects and graphics projects, she engages in the organization team of PIXELvienna conference and CGmag Austria. Currently, she is a doctoral researcher in science visualization projects in Science Visualization Lab Angewandte at University of Applied Arts Vienna. She is part of the Noise Aquarium collaborative project between ArtSci Center UCLA and Science Visualization Lab Angewandte.

Mateusz Marpi Marcinowski – Marpi studio

Mateusz Marpi Marcinowski is a San Francisco based Technical Director / Digital Artist. He has migrated between different technologies and media, in both the commercial and art worlds. He is lucky to work with and lead the most passionate and talented people in the industry (Obscura Digital). Marpi is passionate about shared experiences and uses technology to bridge the gap between people separated by common barriers. His creative work revolves around connecting people by building 3D worlds, creating immersive Virtual Reality experiences, and Interactive Art events.

Website: www.marpi.pl

YoungChu Suh – Korea National University of Arts

Yongchu Suh is an animation artist who has experimented with techniques, mediums and platforms for her moving-image works. Her interests are expanding boundaries of animation media based on an animator’s performativity and somatic senses. Her works have been internationally invited in over 50 festivals and art shows, such as Hammer Museum, Seoul Museum of Art, Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, Korean Film Archive, Hiroshima International Animation Festival, Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival and Seoul International New Media Festival, etc.  

Suh has received her PhD degree in Animation Theory from Chung-Ang University, MFA degree in Experimental Animation & Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts, and BFA degree (Graduated with Honors) in Animation from School of Visual Arts in New York. She is currently teaching at Korea National University of Arts. 

Elke E. Reinhuber – NTU

Elke Reinhuber received professional training as an industrial photographer and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts (UDK), as well as in London (Chelsea College), Bologna (Accademia di Belle Arti) and Sydney (SCA) before she started teaching at the Braunschweig University of the Arts (HBK) and establishing the department for Media Design at the German University in Cairo (GUC).Her artwork was presented in several international institutions, most recently at ZKM Karlsruhe, Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Grid Photofestival Amsterdam and can be seen online on ‘An Inquiry into Modes of Existence’, commissioned by Bruno atour in 2014.

Website: www.eer.de

Volker Kuchelmeister – UNSW Art & Design

Volker Kuchelmeister is a media artist, researcher and digital media specialist. He is expert in place representation and has worked extensively with cinematography, interactive systems, immersive visualisation and mediation in the performing arts while exploring and exploding the boundaries of the cinematic image. He has founded and directed three leading media-art research labs (ZKM Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe Germany – Multimedia Studio, UNSW iCinema Centre Media Lab and the UNSW National Institute for Experimental Art – Immersive Media Lab) and his interactive installations and experimental video projects are exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals around the world.

Luis (Carlos) Dominguez – UNSW

BIO

Carlos Dominguez has been involved in online learning design and development in different institutions in Australia. He worked as research assistant at Bond University then as Business System Analyst at the University of the Sunshine Coast. For 5 years he was Online learning Educational Officer for the Centre for Open Education at Macquarie university. He is presently learning Immersive Technologies for the PVCE at UNSW.

Amy Buchan – EPICentre

BIO

Amy studied a Bachelor Degree (with Honours) of Media Arts with a focus on Animation and Visual Effects at UNSW Art and Design. Her experience is in art and design for interactive projects, with a strong passion for making things that encourage fun and play.

She has worked on video game projects in both 2D and 3D, as well as projects utilising technology such as VR and live motion capture.

Lucy Ogden-Boyle – EPICentre

BIO

Lucy Ogden-Doyle is a 3D artist with a Bachelor of Media Arts (Hons) from UNSW Art & Design. Her interest lies within the technical exploration and investigation with 3D art, and she has a passion for experimentation in interactive media.

She has an interest in development in a broad range of media arts such as 3D modelling, texturing, rigging and animating. She has experience in game development for 2D, 3D and VR platforms, as well as motion capture and live tracking.