Participant Biographies:

Burak Arikan
Drew Baker
John (Craig) Freeman
Eric Gordon
Usman Haque
Drew Harry
Gene Koo
Michael Takeo Magruder
Pierre Proske
Victoria Scott
David Steele

 

Mixed Realities: An International Symposium at Emerson College (Boston) and in Second Life

Presentations and Discussion: February 8; 10 am - 5 pm
Venue: Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont Street [MAP: select #2, 216 Tremont Street], Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts; Emerson Island* (182, 112, 23), Second Life.

Free and Open to the Public

To Register for Symposium: email jo at turbulence dot org with Symposium in the subject line (Lunch included


Workshop: NO MATTER by Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott
February 9; 1-5 pm
Venue: Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont Street [MAP: select #2, 216 Tremont Street], Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts.


Free and Open to the Public

To Register for Workshop: email jo at turbulence dot org with Workshop in the subject line (Limited to 12 participants)


    Participant Biographies

Burak Arikan
is an artist and designer creating networked systems that evolve with the interactions of people and machines. He shows the instances of these systems through diverse media including prints, animation, software, electronics, and physical materials. His work has recently been shown at Ars Electronica, Venice Biennale, and Art Interactive in Cambridge.

Arikan completed his master's degree at the MIT Media Laboratory in the Physical Language Workshop (PLW) led by John Maeda. While at MIT, he pursued research exploring systems that address the transition from connectivity to collectivity in the context of creative expression. Sparked form this research, Arikan initiated the Open I/O platform for artists and designers to collaborate through composing distributed electronic objects and space over the Internet.

Prior to MIT, he worked as an information architect and visual designer in the United States and Turkey. He received an MA degree in Visual Communication Design from Istanbul Bilgi University in 2004, and a BS degree in Civil Engineering from Yildiz Technical University in 2001.

Drew Baker is a Senior Research Fellow within the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London. One of the founding members of King's Visualisation Lab, he has worked in the field of archaeological 3D visualization and interpretation for over ten years. His specialization is in the area of 3D modeling - specifically interactive web-based environments and constructs. Drew’s primary interest in deploying 3D and advanced technologies within cultural practice is to transform spectators into active participants though the utilization of virtual worlds and artifacts. He is currently concluding a two year AHRC-funded project exploring the process of cognitive modeling in 3D environments and how visualization methodologies can be recorded and understood.

John Craig Freeman's work has been exhibited internationally including at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing, the Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich, Eyebeam in New York, City, the Zacheta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki (the national gallery of Warsaw), Kaliningrad Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Russia, Art Basel Miami, Ciberart Bilbao and the Girona Video and Digital Arts Festival in Spain, La Biblioteca National in Havana, the Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, the Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary, the Center for Experimental and Perceptual Art (CEPA) in Buffalo, Art interactive, Mobius and Studio Soto in Boston, the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, Ambrosino Gallery in Miami, the Photographers Gallery in London, and the Friends of Photography's Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco.

In 1992 Freeman was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has been published in Leonardo, the Journal of Visual Culture, and Exposure, as well as a chapter in the book Electronic Collaboration in the Humanities. His work has been reviewed in Wired News, Artforum, Ten-8, Z Magazine, Afterimage, Photo Metro, New Art Examiner, Time, Harper's and Der Spiegel. Lucy Lippard cites Freeman's work in her book The Lure of the Local, as does Margot Lovejoy in her book Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age.

Freeman received a Bachelor of Art degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1986 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990. He is an Associate Professor of New Media at Emerson College in Boston. The focus of his academic activities throughout the last decade has been to integrate computer technology and theory of electronic culture into visual art curriculum and to explore interdisciplinary approaches to education and technology.

Eric Gordon is an assistant professor in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College in Boston. His work focuses on technology in public space, perceptions of place in synthetic worlds, and social software in teaching and learning. His book The Urban Spectator: Emerging Media and the Consumption of the American City is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press.

Usman Haque, Haque Design + Research, architect and programmer, UK, has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life.

Drew Harry is a Research Assistant with the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. He's interested in the possibilities of virtual worlds for creating new kinds of mediated social spaces. His past projects have explored identity issues in online games, sharing presence and location on mobile devices, and web-based collaboration. He was a member of the inaugural class at Olin College, and holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering. While at Olin he worked at IBM Research and Motorola Labs, as well founding Thinkature – a web collaboration startup.

Scott Kildall is cross-disciplinary artist working with video, installation, prints, sculpture and performance. He gathers material from the public realm as the crux of his artwork. Through this method, he uncovers relationships between human memory and social media technology. He has a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Brown University. In 2006, he received a M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago through the Art & Technology Studies Department. He has exhibited in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Helsinki, Ireland, Spain and Romania. In the fall of 2006, he finished a conceptual art residency called The Future of Idea Art at The Banff Centre for the Arts. He followed this with a six-month fellowship at the Kala Art Institute focusing on remembrance in simulated worlds. He also works with Second Front — the first performance art group in Second Life. He currently resides in San Francisco.

Gene Koo, JD, is the CALI Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Gene has extensive experience conducting professional education through technology, with a particular focus on developing skills and values through networked media.He is one of the principals of Hub2, an experiment in using virtual worlds to engage communities with their public spaces. In fall 2006 he co-taught CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion, the first course offered by Harvard in Second Life. He also consulted for the State of Play Academy, which piloted legal education in There.com. His side projects include leading an interdisciplinary team studying the intersection of video games and moral learning.

Michael Takeo Magruder is an American artist based in the UK working with New and Technological Media within Contemporary Arts practice. His artworks have been showcased in over 180 exhibitions and 30 countries, including venues such as the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, EAST International 2005, Georges Pompidou Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau. His works are regular inclusions in international New Media festivals, such as Cybersonica, CYNETart, FILE, Filmwinter, SeNef, Siggraph, Split, VAD and WRO. His artistic practice has been funded directly by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Arts Council England, The National Endowment for the Arts, USA and numerous public galleries both within the UK and abroad. Michael is also recognized for his on-line arts practice and has been commissioned by leading portals for Internet Art such as Turbulence.org and Soundtoys.net. His current interests concern the simultaneous utilization and dissection of new technology as a means to explore the formal structures and conceptual paradigms of the digital realm. He seeks to create artworks in which there are no divisions between technologies, aesthetics, and concepts.

Pierre Proske is an Australian electronic artist intrigued by the pervasiveness of technology in culture and its relationship to nature. After years of juggling parallel interests in technology and the arts, Pierre tired of the schizophrenia and finally discovered that it was socially acceptable, in fact highly desirable, to merge the two. Consequently he has taken on the ambitious task of rendering computers accountable to our sometimes misplaced but inevitable humanity.

Proske's work involves exposing the unspoken relationships we have with technology and harnessing machines into exploring new aesthetics. He has exhibited or performed in Australia, Sweden., Brazil, Japan and the Netherlands.

Having studied Electrical Engineering and Liberal Arts at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Pierre spent 4 years in Sweden where he performed, exhibited and obtained a Master of Science in Art and Technology from Chalmers University. His background in arts, engineering, philosophy, music and literature provides him with sufficient options to keep himself perpetually occupied in a self-inspired quest to weave together several unrelated threads of activity.

Victoria Scott is a visual artist who works with electronic media, sculpture and social relations, both materially and as conceptual metaphor. For over a decade she has researched and created large-scale installations, objects, digital prints and audio works. Her ongoing projects include the material depiction of personal simulations and psychological spaces within online environments and real life. She is also developing a series of batteries that are charged by emotional energy and microorganisms. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Victoria graduated from the New Media/Photo Electric Arts Dept., at The Ontario College of Art & Design. In 2003, she was awarded the full Trustees Scholarship to attend at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago within the Art and Technology Department. Scott completed her MFA in 2005. She has exhibited in Sweden, Mexico City, Toronto, Berlin, Boston, Miami and Chicago and is the recipient of grants from both the Canada and Ontario Arts Councils.

David Steele is a senior technical consultant based in Arlington, Virginia, USA working with advanced web technology and database architecture. He has been undertaking research and development in these fields since the middle nineties and was a pioneer in pairing cutting-edge clients to existing corporate infrastructures. David’s work has enabled a variety of high profile applications from global text messaging frameworks to re-entry systems for the space shuttle. He is currently interested in exploring the limits of what code can run in a browser in order to reduce server load and enhance the user experience. The ultimate goal is for users to forget that they are working in a browser as the web converges with native applications.


Support

  New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. commissioned five works ($5,000 each) for Mixed Realities with funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Hosted by Emerson College’s Huret & Spector Gallery, the exhibition and symposium are funded by Emerson College's School of the Arts and Department of Visual and Media Arts; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
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