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.