
Jude Abu Zaineh
Area of Research / Interest: Bioart, contemporary art, new media, cultural studies
Undergraduate Education Institution: University of Windsor
Undergraduate Major: Visual Arts and Communications; Media & Film
Biography: Jude Abu Zaineh is a Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Her practice employs art, food, and technology to investigate meanings of culture, displacement, diaspora, and belonging. She examines ideals of home and community while working to develop aesthetics rooted in her childhood and upbringing in the Middle East. Abu Zaineh is the recipient of the 2020 William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists. She has exhibited her work at Ontario Science Centre and MOCA Toronto (Canada); Cultivamos Cultura, Portugal; Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Portugal; Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico; SVA, NYC, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, USA; Forest City Gallery, Canada; Centre Culturel Canadien, France. Email: abuzaj@rpi.edu.

Leo Chang
Area of Research / Interest: Improvisation, Social Dynamics of Music Making
Undergraduate Education Institution: Washington University in St. Louis
Undergraduate Major: Music; Psychology
Biography: Leo Chang (he/him) is a Korean improviser, composer and performer of avant-garde music currently living in Brooklyn. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and Shanghai, and then moved to the United States in 2011. Needing to assimilate to different cultures from a young age, Leo expresses rootlessness and multiplicity within identities through his music, while being skeptical of norms and definitions. Leo traces the origins of his fractured identity-formation to colonial legacies that continue to this day. His art is an act of home-making inspired by various musical and ideological movements that have sought to question power dynamics and imagine freedom within egalitarian possibilities. His primary methods are free improvisation, written text, graphical notation, and electronic processing. Email: changh8@rpi.edu.

Jaehoon Choi
Area of Research / Interest: Sound Art, Computer Music, Software Studies
Undergraduate Education Institution: Indiana University Bloomington
Undergraduate Major: Information Systems
Biography: Jaehoon Choi is a computer musician/sound artist/researcher based in New York and Seoul. His practice involves embodied experimentation through a technical medium, which involves both the making/design and the performative process. As a researcher, he is interested in understanding how technology-mediated practice affords distributed artistic activities as a community and its aesthetic implementation. At the same time, he does not distinguish research and practice as a strict binary and seeks ways to integrate those two in an organic way. His works have been presented in ICMC, CeReNeM, ECHO Journal, ZER01NE, Visions Du Reel, CEMEC, etc. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Electronic Arts at RPI and graduated from Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics(CCRMA) as a Masters.

Kosmas Giannoutakis
Hometown / Country: Thessaloniki, Greece
Area of Research / Interest: computer music, decentralized musicking
Undergraduate Education Institution: Pa.Mak., HfM Freiburg, KUG IEM
Undergraduate Major: Music Composition; Computer Music
Biography: Kosmas Giannoutakis studied piano and percussion performance, composition, and computer music in Greece, Germany, and Austria. Currently, he is attending the Ph.D. Electronic Arts program at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with a focus on experimental, blockchain-powered, post-capitalist political economies of music. His works have been presented and received awards in numerous international festivals and conferences. Email: giannk@rpi.edu

Nina Isabelle
Hometown / Country: Hurley, NY
Area of Research / Interest: Contemporary Art Practices & New Interfaces for Artistic Expression
Undergraduate Education Institution: Westminster College
Undergraduate Major: Art
Email: isaben@rpi.edu

Ricardo Tovar Mateus
Area of Research / Interest: Multimedia Installation
Undergraduate Education Institution: University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna
Undergraduate Major: Media composition and applied music
Biography: Ricardo Tovar Mateus is a Colombian interdisciplinary composer, performer, and curator. His work emerges from the versatility of his musical influences, contrasting aesthetics and exploring the connections between visual art, music, and performance. As a composer his works have been performed in various in Spain, Germany, Austria, Norway, North and South America, South Africa and Taiwan. He received his training at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna as well as at the Vienna Conservatory, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in composition for instrumental music and media. Email: tovarr@rpi.edu

Hanae Utamura
Hometown / Country: Ibaraki, Japan
Area of Research / Interest: Deep Ecology, Anthropocene, Earth Science, Science and Technology Studies, Folkloric Practices, Ritual of Embodiment; Palaeolithic Culture
Undergraduate Education Institution: Goldsmiths, University of London
Undergraduate Major: Fine Art
Email: utamuh@rpi.edu

Allie E.S. Wist
Area of Research / Interest: Anthropocene, Sensory Studies, Media Studies, Environmental Humanities, Hauntology, Deep Ecology, Food Studies, New Materialism, Speculative Realism
Undergraduate Education Institution: Boston University
Undergraduate Major: Media, Fine Art
Biography: Allie E.S. Wist is a scholar-artist currently working on an Arts PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a focus on sensory futures and the Anthropocene. Her work encompasses photography, radio broadcasts, artifacts, installations, and writing that render temporalities accessible through material and speculative narratives. She is originally from Pittsburgh, PA, and grew up in a small steel mill town. She has an MA in Food Studies from New York University and a BA in Media from Boston University, and worked in food media for over a decade. Her artwork has been exhibited with Honolulu Biennial, The Wellcome Collection, and HESSE FLATOW, and she has taught at NYU and The New School. Email: wista@rpi.edu

Arma Yari
Area of Research / Interest: Neuroaesthetics, Quantum Mechanics, Light Installation
Undergraduate Education Institution: OCAD University
Undergraduate Major: Photography
Biography: Arma Yari is a Persian Canadian interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto and New York. She received an MFA in Visual Arts from York University, a BFA in Photography from OCAD University and is currently a student in the Electronic Arts (Ph.D.) program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Arma’s approach is based on blending disciplines of art, technology and engineering, and the incorporation of both social issues, philosophical theories and scientific methodologies that revolve around the notions of perception and reality. Email: Yaria@rpi.edu

Mengtai Zhang
Area of Research / Interest: VR, Sound, Visual Culture, Art and Everyday Life
Undergraduate Education Institution: Goldsmith, University of London
Undergraduate Major: Fine Art
Biography: Zhang Mengtai employs sculpture, sound, and simulation technology to create ambivalent allegories of power, where personal and sociopolitical factors encounter each other. His current research explores artistic creation in virtual reality by exploring its capacity to construct reality.
Mengtai's works have been presented internationally, including IDFA, MIFF, Sundance Film Festival, New York Fashion Week, Fridman Gallery, Times Art Museum, and Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. Conferences that have programmed Mengtai’s works include ACM Siggraph, NIME, and ICMC. He has received fellowships from Wave Farm, IDFA DocLab, and Sylff Association. He received the “Best Chinese Work Award” from Sandbox Immersive Festival 2022 for his VR work Diagnosia. Email: zhangm18@rpi.edu.

Bibiana Med
Area of Research / Interest: new media, multimedia installation, Science and Technology Studies (STS), institutional critique, queer and trans studies, performance studies, technology, deep space frontier, spheres of influence (SOI), narrative construction, land / border / grey zones, post-colonial studies, documentary, interdisciplinary, collaboration, process, spectacle and society
Undergraduate Education Institution: Pratt Institute (BFA); University of Massachusetts-Amherst (MFA)
Undergraduate Major: Media Arts (BFA), Media and Film (MFA)
Biography: Hometown: Uherske Hradiste, Czech Republic
Bibiana Med (b. Czech Republic)(they/them) is a media installation artist who fuses documentary practices, archival research, science fiction, and technologically mediated performance. Currently they are developing a media platform dedicated to support the creation of new imaginaries for deep space. Their work has been shown at EMPAC, Troy NY, Benaki Museum, Athens Greece; their work has been included in projects that have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2017), MoMA PS1, Queens NY (2015) and has been reviewed in the Hyperallergic, ArtFCity and Feature Shoot. Bibiana is a PhD researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founder of Pickled Press and Queer Space Network. Email: medkob@rpi.edu.