Get to know the students, researchers, artists, tutors and coordinators of this edition.
STUDENTS
University of Westminster / CSNI, London South Bank University
Teodora Sinziana Alata is an artist and researcher whose practice critically explores worldbuilding and speculative futuring with real-time and interactive technologies. She is currently exploring the (mis)use of game engines for artistic expression, the politics and logics of computational media production in contemporary technoculture, and the poetics of interaction and machine intelligence as they are instrumentally deployed within reality media.
She is a Lecturer in Creative Computing and Algorithmic Cultures at the University of Westminster, where she lectures in extended realities, human-computer interaction and narrative experience design, and a PhD candidate at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University, where her work focuses on practices of worlding, computer-mediated imaginaries and networked experiences.
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland & Max Planck Society, Rome, Italy
Ludovica Schaerf is a doctoral student between the University of Zurich and the Instituto Max Planck Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. Ludovica has studied informatics at Amsterdam University College and digital humanities engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Her PhD thesis project focuses on the interpretation of latent spaces created by generative models in the context of artistic fields. Other areas of interest include the use of AI in art authentication and the curation of art-literary collections as digital installations.
Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Martin Disley is a design researcher with a critical engineering studio practice working in software, film, installation and text. His AHRC and Microsoft-funded PhD research explores how adversarial computing and investigative aesthetics might contribute to the interpretation and evaluation of generative computer vision applications. He is the co-founder, alongside Murad Khan, of Unit Test, a collaborative creative research studio that assembles researchers, engineers, and artists to explore aesthetic approaches to investigative computation.
He has presented and exhibited work at arebyte Gallery (online/London, UK), Akademie der Künste (Berlin, DE), Fabrica (Treviso, IT), Edinburgh Art Festival (Edinburgh, UK), Unsound Festival (Krakow, PL), the V&A Museum (Dundee, UK), the Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow, UK), Architekturforum Oberösterreich (Linz, AT), and Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Ghent, BE).
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Federico Espositi graduated in Automation Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, focusing on social robotics and artificial intelligence. His technical background is complemented by a decade of exploration in various storytelling mediums, from graphic novels to video games. He began his theater journey in 2009 with the Non Scuola project by Teatro delle Albe in Ravenna, later studying acting with Luciano Colavero and Giovanni Covini, and directing with Riccardo Mallus and Giacomo Ferraù. Since 2017, he has worked as a theater trainer and director. In 2021, he started a PhD at the Politecnico di Milano, investigating non-verbal communication through new technological expressions such as virtual reality, wearables, and robotics, presenting interactive installations at Milano Digital Week in 2022 and 2023. His artistic work is defined by collaboration and experimentation with multidisciplinary languages, fostering unique modes of expression.
UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Lisbon, Portugal
Verónica Silva is a Professor at IADE, where she has been teaching since 2021. She lectures across Undergraduate programs in Design, Creative Technologies, Global Design, Photography & Visual Culture, and Marketing & Advertising, as well as Post-Graduate courses in Creative Advertising and Design Systems. Alongside her academic career, Verónica has over a decade of experience as a freelance designer, working with international clients, primarily in the US and UK. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Design at IADE, Portugal, where her research explores race and gender bias in AI and its implications for the future of design. Verónica holds a Master’s in Audiovisual and Multimedia Communication from IADE (2021) and a Bachelor’s in Communication Design from the City University of New York (2014).
ELLIS Alicante, Spain
Piera Riccio is a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at ELLIS Alicante. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Media Engineering, a master’s degree in ICT for Smart Societies (Telecommunication Engineering), and a master’s degree in Data Science and Engineering. She performed research stays/affiliations at the ETH Zurich, Metalab@Harvard, and Oslo Metropolitan University. She is currently studying how artificial intelligence can influence the representation of bodies in contemporary visual culture, with a specific focus on women and diversity. Moreover, she also engages in exploring the cultural, social, and artistic possibilities of AI through her artistic practice, which has led to the foundation of an art collective (collective no:topia). She has exhibited her work in several different venues around Europe, including Ars Electronica Center, Futurium, Re:publica, Phest and the Cannes AI World Festival.
University of Melbourne
Geoffrey Hondroudakis is a scholar of media theory and philosophy of technology. His work addresses concepts and techniques of scale and systematicity across a multidisciplinary framework, drawing on the history and philosophy of science, media and communication studies, literary theory, and both analytic and continental traditions of philosophy. Currently his research takes a particular interest in planetary computing systems and processes of technosocial judgement. He currently teaches at the University of Melbourne, and has published on technofeminism, coloniality in speculative fiction, and internet memes, among other topics. Geoffrey lives and works on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation.
PhD candidate at Stanford University, Stanford, USA
Grace Han is a PhD candidate in Art History at Stanford University, where she thinks about animation aesthetics. Prior to Stanford, she received the SAS Maureen Furniss Award for Best Student Paper on Animated Media (2019) for an essay on anime melodrama. She is currently working on a dissertation on the generative archive.
Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Potsdam, Germany
Alexander Walmsley is an artist working between film, photography and digital media. In his research-based practice, he investigates how our understanding of the earth is shifting, mediated by the new technological, environmental and social realities of the 21st century. His recent work has been shown at the Daejeon Biennale of Arts and Sciences, Tirana Art Lab, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Photographers' Gallery, and Ars Electronica. He was a commissioned artist for the Albanian pavilion of the 59th Venice Biennale and was shortlisted for the Deloitte Photo Grant in 2023 and Istanbul 212 Photography Prize in 2021. He is currently a lecturer at the Film University Konrad Wolf in Potsdam, Germany, where is also undertaking an artistic PhD on the subject of computational time and the representation of the earth.
TUTORS
Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK
Caterina Moruzzi is a Chancellor's fellow in Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Her research spans the fields of human and artificial creativity, philosophy of art, and the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. As BRAID Research Fellow, she leads a collaboration with Adobe to promote the responsible integration of Artificial Intelligence tools into creative practices. As Co-Investigator in the CoSTAR and DeCADE projects, funded by UK Research and Innovation, she investigates the disruptive effects that emerging technological innovations have on the creative sector. At the forefront of the research on modes of shared creativity between humans, data, and technology, Caterina is Lead of the research cluster "Creativity, AI, and the Human” at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and Senior Fellow of the Future Unilab, at the Una Europa Alliance.
i2ADS / Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto
Miguel Carvalhais is Professor of Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto. His research explores computational art, design and aesthetics, topics to which he dedicated two books: "Art and Computation" (2022) and “Artificial Aesthetics” (2016). His artistic practice spans computer music, sound art, and installations. He runs the Crónica label for experimental music and sound art.
co-chair, visual and studio arts, Sarah Lawrence College
Angela Ferraiolo is a systems artist working with open-endedness, self-organization, morphogenesis, and adaptive processes. She was recently in-residence at the Intelligent Engineering Lab, Soka University (Hachioji Tokyo). Professionally she has worked for RKO (New York), H20 Studios (Vancouver), Westwood Studios (Las Vegas), and Electronic Arts (Redwood City). Her artwork has been screened and installed internationally including Nabi Art Center (Seoul), SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles), ISEA (Vancouver, Hong Kong), EVA (London), xCoAx (Madrid, Milan), Art Machines 2 (Hong Kong), New York Film Festival (New York), Courtisane Film Festival (Ghent), Australian Experimental Film Festival (Melbourne), and the International Conference of Generative Art (Rome, Venice, Florence). New projects include experiments in adaptive systems and open-ended evolution. She is based in New York and is a co-chair in visual and studio arts at Sarah Lawrence College where she founded the program in new genres.
i2ADS / Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
André is an artist and designer. His thought and practice explores the thresholds and permeability between art, design and computational technologies. He has been developing and disseminating knowledge and skills inherent to the process of making and experiencing intermedia, interactive and multi-sensory artworks.
Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Belas-Artes, Centro de Investigação e de Estudos em Belas-Artes (CIEBA)
Luísa Ribas teaches Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, focusing on the complementarity between print and digital media. Her research is devoted to the study of computational systems as aesthetic artefacts, addressing their design and experience. She holds a PhD in Art and Design, a Master in Multimedia Art and a degree in Communication Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and is currently a member of CIEBA (Center for Research and Studies in Fine Arts) also collaborating with ID+ (Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture). She has contributed to several publications and events on design and digital arts, and, since 2017, is a member of the organizing Committee of xCoAx, a conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X.
Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Straniere, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Mario Verdicchio is from Milan, Italy. He holds a PhD in Knowledge Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy and he is currently researcher at the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures of the University of Bergamo, Italy, where he researches on Artificial Intelligence, Computer Art, Digital Humanities, and Philosophy of Technology. He has co-founded the xCoAx conference series and is a member of the Berlin Ethics Lab at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. He has authored two books (“Informatica per la Comunicazione” - Computing for Communication - and “Che cos’è un Computer?” - What is a computer?) and several articles published on international journals. Occasionally, his experiments on art and computation make it to the world of art and design, as with his tapestry “The Tree of Decisions”, which was shown at the Milan Design Week in 2023.
School of Design & Informatics, Abertay University
Martin is a researcher and curator focusing on artistic and activist experiments with emerging technologies. His current work focuses on the impact of AI on our understanding of authorship and originality, and on efforts to push blockchain technologies beyond their fintech legacy. Martin's research is widely published in key anthologies (including Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain and DATABrowser) and journals (such as Leonardo, Philosophy & Technology, and Culture Machine). He is the author of Tactical Entanglements (meson press 2021).