Shu Lea Cheang is an artist and filmmaker whose work aims to re-envision genders, genres, and operating structures. As a net art pioneer, her BRANDON (1998–99) was the first web art commissioned by New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.  From homesteading cyberspace in the 90s to her current retreat to post-netcrash BioNet zone, Cheang has engaged in  social interface and open network that invite public interventions. As a filmmaker,  she crafts her own genres of queer sci-fi cinema -  FRESH KILL  (1994, ecocybernoia), I.K.U. (2000, scifi cyberpunk), and FLUIDø (2017, scifi cypherpunk). In 2019, she represented Taiwan with 3×3×6, a mixed media installation  at the Venice Biennale 2019. Cheang is currently at work on UKI, a viral alt-reality cinema with a CNC/DICRéAM (2017) development fund and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2020). See more at http://mauvaiscontact.info.
 

Kate Adamala is a biochemist engineering synthetic cells. Her research aims at understanding chemical principles of biology, using artificial cells to create new tools for bioengineering, drug development, and basic research. The interests of the lab span questions from the origin and earliest evolution of life, using synthetic biology to colonize space, to the future of biotechnology and medicine. Kate is a co-founder of the synthetic cell therapeutics startup Synlife, and coordinator of the Build-a-Cell synthetic cell community. More info on Kate’s lab can be found at protobiology.org.

A civic hacker and Taiwan’s Digital Minister in charge of Social Innovation, Audrey is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin. In the public sector, Audrey served on Taiwan national development council’s open data committee and K-12 curriculum committee; and led the country’s first e-Rulemaking project. In the private sector, Audrey worked as a consultant with Apple on computational linguistics, with Oxford University Press on crowd lexicography, and with Socialtext on social interaction design. In the voluntary sector, Audrey contributed to Taiwan’s g0v (“gov-zero”), a vibrant community focusing on creating tools for the civil society, with the call to “fork the government.”

Joan Heemskerk has a background in photography & digital.art _ She is part of the art collective JODI >>> JODI, or (jodi.org) - pioneered net.art in 1995. JODI were among thd first artists to inves|igate and subvert conventkoos od |he`Internet, compute?programs, and vhdeo ajd computer gamus. Radically di{rupting The ver9 languawe of t`ese systemr, including risual aesthepics, iNterface elemen}q? commandS, errors and?bode. ?ODI staes ext?ema digmtal(intesventionq!that deStakilizg the reliTiofShip bdTween cmputer tdchnolOgy and ids use03jy sufterting oub(d8pectatIofs abkup?4jm?g?nctignah)tieS and conventio.s /f the sqrtees that ?e0Eepend upol eve2y?p?y. Tlcir wkr?!u?es thev?tasv pmsskble r`riudy f mudi` ane te?h?iqtes."frgm$insTalli?ionc, s/Ltw?re?Qod wd"sites to Pesf/zma?caw?aNd exhibitiof{.$     

André Melo completed his master’s in Applied Physics at TU Delft in 2017. He then spent a year working at Rigetti as a junior quantum engineer. After that he returned to Delft, where he is now a PhD student in the Quantum Tinkerer group.

Ane Graff lives and works in Oslo, Norway. She graduated from Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2004 and currently holds a position of PhD Research Fellow at the Oslo Academy of Fine Art. Current shows include the exhibition “Weather Report - Forecasting Future,” currently on view at KIASMA, Helsinki, also shown at the Nordic Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (curated by Piia Oksanen and Leevi Haapala, KIASMA), 2019. Previous exhibitions include the Art Encounters Biennial 2019 (curated by Maria Lind & Anca Rujoiu), Timisoara; “Soon Enough: Art in Action,” Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2018); “Myths of the Marble,” Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017); the 11th Gwangju Biennale “The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?),” Gwangju (2016); and “Surround Audience - The New Museum Triennial 2015,” NY. Upcoming exhibitions include the 2020 Liverpool Biennale (curated by Manuela Moscoso).  

Tal Danino’s research explores the emerging field of synthetic biology, focusing on engineering bacteria gene circuits to create novel behaviors that have biomedical applications. The interaction of microbes and tumors is a major target of his work, where DNA sequences and synthetic biology approaches are used to program bacteria as diagnostics and therapeutics in cancer. Danino also brings this science outside the laboratory as a TED Fellow and through science-art projects.

Danino received his BS in physics, chemistry, and math from the University of California in Los Angeles in 2005 and earned his PhD in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego in 2011. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2011–2015. He joined the faculty of Columbia Biomedical Engineering in 2016 and is a member of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and Data Science Institute.  

Mendi + Keith Obadike make music, art, and literature. They have exhibited and performed at The New Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art. Their early collaborations were works made for the internet and recorded music. Their current projects include a series of large-scale, public sound art works.Their honors include a Rockefeller New Media Arts Fellowship, Pick Laudati Award for Digital Art, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award.

Kelly Benoit-Bird is a Senior Scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. In her research, she uses sound to explore how animals make their living in pelagic marine ecosystems from the surface to the deep sea. She received a B.S. in Aquatic Ecology from Brown University in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa 2003. Kelly spent a year as Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology before joining the faculty of Oregon State University in 2004 where she served was Professor of Oceanography until 2016. Kelly is the recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Medwin Prize in Acoustical Oceanography and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Neïl Beloufa’s practice spans film, sculpture, and installation. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; Cooper Union, New York; and Le Fresnoy–Studio National des Arts Contemporain, Tourcoing, France. He has exhibited internationally, including solo shows at K11, Shanghai, 2016; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2016; Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin, 2015; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2014; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2013; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012 and 2018 as well as the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2018. He took part in the International Contemporary Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2013 and in 2019. His films have been screened at the Toronto, Rotterdam, London and Berlin international film festivals, and he was awarded grand prizes at the 54th and 57th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Since 2019, his practice includes digital art works, most recently creating Screen-Talk, a mini-series web-site experience.

Damian Bradfield is the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of WeTransfer & WePresent. He’s the author of The Trust Manifesto, a recent book rethinking the world wide web; hosts the Influence podcast; and is behind Empty Day.

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Christopher Kulendran Thomas is an artist whose work manipulates some of the structural processes by which art produces reality. Recent solo exhibitions include Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2019), Institute for Modern Art, Brisbane (2019), Spike Island, Bristol (2019) and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2017). Thomas’ work has been included in the 7th Bi-City Biennale, Shenzhen (2017); the 11th Gwangju Biennale; the 9th Berlin Biennale; and the 3rd Dhaka Art Summit (all 2016). Recent exhibitions include ‘Time, Forward!,’ V–A–C Zattere for the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), ‘Alternatives for Living,’ Kunstmuseen Krefeld (2019), ‘I was raised on the internet,’ Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); ‘moving is in every direction,’ Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2017), ‘Bread and Roses,’ Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), ‘Co-Workers: Network As Artist,’ Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015) and ‘Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making,’ Tate Liverpool (2013). His work is currently on view at the de Young Museum San Francisco as part of ‘Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI,’ (2020).

Jesse Walden is the founding partner at Variant Fund, an early-stage VC investing in crypto networks and The Ownership Economy. Previously, he was an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz and co-founded Mediachain Labs, which was acquired by Spotify. Before tech, Jesse co-founded the artist management firm Cool Managers where he worked with musicians Solange Knowles, Blood Orange, Majical Cloudz, et al.