MMK 2009

Annemie Maes
media artist and activist, holds a masters degree in fine arts and cultural studies. She is founder of the organizations Pix & Motion (film production) and Looking Glass (public art-space), and later of the collectives So-oN (visual anthropology) and Okno (a group of artists working with image, sound and technology). All organizations and collectives focus on a transversal media approach and most of the developed projects are linked to the problematization of new art in the public space. The focus is to identify innovation and change while doing artistic research and to develop new projects starting from a socio-cultural background.

Her visual anthropology projects are presented as documentaries with a focus on grassroots activism, eco-technology and networks of women.
They are part of the larger project ‘Politics of Change’, studying the sustainable relationships between people, their environment and technology.
Politics of Change positions itself as a platform for collaborations and partnerships. Collaborative knowledge building and transmission is at the core of the project.
As means of expression she explores the behavior of language in its many appearances: textual, sonic and visual, as well as gestural or body language. How do these disparate elements relate to each other (whether it be in an interactive installation, a film or a performance) and how do these elements organize within a natural system?

She participated in numerous events, conferences and festivals, as an artist, a lecturer or an organizer. Recent (09) participations are: Happy New Ears and The Game is Up! (media festivals in Belgium), Pixelache festival Helsinki, ETC/genderchangers festival Umeo/Sweden, Finnish cultural Institute in Damascus/Syria. And all OKNO projects, off course!

http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be
http://so-on.be
http://okno.be

Michal Kindernay
lives and works in Prague, studied video & multimedia in Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno. His productions make use of interactive connections of sound, image, and other inputs. He works in an environment of interactive computer applications designed for work with sound and image. He uses them largely as open and interactive composition systems, helping him define the form of his work using an algorithm affecting various parameters of his audio-visual compositions in real time. His previous works include both video performances and installations and intermedia. He frequently collaborates with sound artist Guy van Belle. He is involved in many projects (Favourite sounds of Prague, Crisis Mania, Catophone, Školská 28 gallery, Society of Algorithm, Victory Nox etc.) He runs together with Lenka Dolanová and Magda Kobzová non profit organization Yo-Yo, focussed on media art projects and events.

Isjtar
is a new media artist and electronic musician. Aside from his work as an artist, he is one of the artistic directors of arts organization OKNO.
He is specialized in experimental media techniques and has conducted several workshops, gave lectures and published articles in this field.

He is part of several collectives (Society Of Algorithm, mXhz) and works with numerous Belgian and international artists such as Annemie Maes, Guy Van Belle, Shelbatra Jashari, Akihiro Kubota and Jeroen Uyttendale. He took part in dEAF07, Cynetart06, Sonambiente06, Upgrade! Chain Reaction, I’mPulse Beijing, ZKM Flying Circus and other events.

Barbara Huber
Lives and works in and for different EU countries. Fighting her way through the job jungle after studying philosophy in Vienna and ended up at the radio station FRO in Linz. Sound installations and experimental radio shows followed as well as workshop tours through CEE countries for audio and open source software and systems. Various artistic projects and performances followed like the online database projects Karasssuite or Soundsource. Co-founder of the organization COL-ME (co-located media expedition) in Bratislava in 2006.
currently mostly working online with CMS’s (drupal) and other open source applications and making open source networked culture in central Europe.

Guy van Belle
Born 1959 in Belgium. After studying literature and linguistics, a little philosophy and sculpting, he made a radical switch to computer music at the end of the 1980s. He has been involved in experimental media art in its many different forms since 1990. First, he restlessly lived and worked in Belfast, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, New York, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Berlin. His most important virtual organisations (all collective) were Stellingname (1984-1989), Young Farmers Claim Future (1990-2000), dBONANZAh! (1998-2002), and finally mXHz.org (2002-?) and Society of Algorithm (2004-?). These setups were merely covers for collaboratively investigating the many different forms of creativity from real and non-physical people, including machines. His work was mainly synaesthetic, real time generated, abstract, algorithmic, and gradually abandoning the familiar settings, parameters and skills for production, display and reception of the work of art as we know it today. He wrote critico-comical pamphlets about art and technology from an anti-post-modernist anti-neo-liberal background. Like everyone in that field and at that time, throughout his life, he had many money problems, many friends and even more enemies. Between 2005 and 2009 he lived in Bratislava, where he began to work under the name of Gívan Belá. The city does not plan a statue yet. Then he moved to Bubeneč, a quarter of Prague, and lived briefly in “čistirna” an old sewage works. There he started exploring a more ecotechnological approach within the media arts, studied the engineering works of William Heerlein Lindley[1], and wrote his fragmentary ‘denizen epos’ (unpublished). There are many unverified stories. Around 2010, after a short visit to a small village in Bohemia (Hranice), and seeing there an abandoned cow house (kravín), he extended his name to Belá-Kravař. Others maintain it is a mutation of Cravan, the proto-dada artist, which he did not admire. For the 7th of November, 2022, he was preparing an homage to Arseny Avraamov in Baku and for that purpose set up the organisation without a centre ‘The Baku 2022 Foundation’ (2007-?).

Kruno Jošt
is one of the founders of organization ‘UKE’ in Križevci (Urban Culture and Education) that focuses on new media culture, international collaboration and exchange in Free and Open Culture. Yearly he organizes event Experimental Electronic Interventions ‘and residency program MMKamp (Multimedia camp). He is acting through GenteJunk collective trough wide range of artistic activities that are criticaly observing relationships between power structures inside neoliberal society and how does this reflects on culture in general.
In 2006. he collaborates at ‘Impromondays’, an improvised open music sessions at ‘Silence Reservoir’ club in Zagreb. As one of the founders and editors of magazine ‘04 - Megazine for Reality Hacking’ , and one of the founders of Internet radio network ‘Free Radio: Stanica MIR’ (FRSM) he is active in independent media since 2003. He is also researching Free Open Culture in Brasil that will help permanent culture exchange between Croatia and Brasil (www.uke.hr/brazil)

MMK 2008

Ricardo Palmieri (vj palm)
is a video-jockey and an architect graduated by the Universidade do Grande ABC (1997-2001), Sao Paulo, Brazil. He did an unfinished master of Design and Architecture at FAU-USP, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Currently he is a consultant of space’s development, scenery and interactive installations to artistic and commercial projects using free softwares. He worked for the Brazilian Ministry of Culture government, inside the program Cultura Viva on the Digital Culture as a researcher of free softwares for graphical production between 2005 and 2007.
Since 2002, he realized works at SESC São Paulo (vila Mariana, Paulista, Pompéia, Campinas, Santos, Consolação, Itaquera, Interlagos, São Carlos, Ribeirão Preto, Catanduva) as an independent artist and with the collectives estudiolivre.org, Metareciclagem and Tempokala performance group. With estudiolivre.org, he participated in 2006, july and august as a multimedia production instructor in the workshops realized at Universidade de Extremadura in Spain. also presented the project Jardim de volts at Hangar in Barcelona, which culminated on the creation of his project Open Kitchen.
Since then, he is creating electronics devices of low cost and realizing workshops to apply those devices.
Interest areas: free culture, veejay, interactive and generative systems, noise music, electronic hacks, circuit bending, diy robots, good and slow food and all performatic new arts.

Dr. Martin Neukom, Head of Computer Music department ICST
Martin Neukom studied musicology, mathematics und psychology at the University of Zurich and music theory at the Musikhochschule Zürich. He works as a teacher of music theory and as a composer. He is engaged in sound synthesis and composition with computers. He was commissioned by the HMT (Hochschule Musik und Theater Zürich) to write the book „Signale, Systeme und Klangsynthese - Grundlagen der Computermusik“, which was accepted as his doctoral thesis by the University of Zurich. He is head of the department Computer Music at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology ICST.

Dr. Daniel Bisig, Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Zurich
Daniel Bisig was born in 1968 in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1994, he received a Master‘s degree in Natural Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In 1998, he received a PhD in Protein Crystallography at the same university. In 1999, he finished training in web-design with a diploma at the EB-Wolfbach, Zurich. In between 1999 and 2001, he was teaching web-design at the EB-Wolfbach and worked as designer and programmer at the web-company Ditoy. In 2001, he joined the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Zurich as a senior researcher. He has also been working as a research associate at the Department of Art and Design, University of Applied Sciences, Aargau in 2003 and at the Institute Cultural Studies, University of Art and Design, Zurich in 2004. Since 2006, he has an additional research position at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology in Zurich. Since 1996, he has been active as an artist in the fields of computer animation, experimental video and software art. He‘s most recent works include BioSonics?, an interactive Artificial Life installation, Ostrawa, an experimental video film and MediaFlies?, a flocking based video and audio remixing tool.

John Flury, Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Zurich
John Flury, born 1976, studied M.I.S. at the University of Zurich, jazz piano at the School of Jazz, St. Gallen and computermusic at the conservatory of Zurich (today: ZHdK). His diploma thesis at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Zurich was called „Design and Implementation of an autonomous music creation system“. Since 2001 John Flury works at Syntharp Instruments as an freelance advisor and software engineer (www.syntharp.com) and since 2006 he participated in the Interactive Swarm Orchestra project with Daniel Bisig and Martin Neukom at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ZHdK, Zurich).

Marcus Maeder, Curator ICST, domizil
Marcus Maeder realized his first musical projects mid of the nineties, when the term „digital culture“ was just beginning to gain usage. The setting was the Kombirama, an artists collective and project space in Zurich. It was during this period that he and Bernd Schurer founded the domizil music label. domizil is a platform for recorded music, an occasional concert venue, a loosely connected group of artists, and, as a label, an interface and instrument for reaching the public. The focus of Marcus Maeders work is on computer music and sound art, which he regularly tries to integrate into broader contexts, creating networks and building bridges, either in connection with theatre projects and installations or in his capacity as author and curator.

Bernd Schurer, domizil
Bernd Schurer is an artist who mainly focuses on the work with sound in a variety of contexts. He has realized compositions and audioworks for film, media- and sound installations, as well as for the stage and he has realized one opera score, all of which cover a broad spectrum of distinct aesthethics. His main interest lies in conceiving systems, that are autonomous, interactive or self- contained, trough the use of digital- and computer aided techniques, mostly applying „experimental methods“, as well as a healthy dose of research, „skepticism“ and daydreaming. He often collaborates closely across different media with other artists.His works have been staged internationally and have received some acclaim and rewards.

MMK 2007

Alexandre Freire
A Brazilian hacker that recently discovered, in a dream, that he was sent back to the past by future mutant-cyborgs struggling with a melting garbage-dump planet. He’s a citizen of the global village currently constructing one of the last resorts of human
resistance in an isolated beach community in Ilha Bela. This place will act as a base for an emerging global culture of media practitioners, activists, artists, researchers and hackers to re-discover their lost sensibility while sharing knowledge and dwelling into the sciences of living and recycling renewable resources like food, energy, water and time using low-tech and free software. Having worked for many multinational corporations as a computer programmer years ago in many countries like USA, Portugal, Italy and Brasil, he left show bussines about 5 years ago when, joined by a collective of Brazilian collectives like des).(centro, submidialogia, metareciclagem, estúdio livre, midia tática, rádio livre, Arca, contraTV and mimoSa; he helped come up with the concept of Digital Culture that he latter helped implement as a coordinator of the Cultural Hotspots project in the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. Digital Culture is fluid, organic, electronic, grassroots culture that thrives to find ways to explore creativity in new mediums and circuits. It is a notion of organic existence inside binary languages, it is a science and consciousness of a new physics beyond quantic abstractions. It is contemplating the possibility of dealing with worlds of knowledge and direct psychic-geographic exchange permeated by contemporary languages and construction of universes. It is the first step in raising awareness of a Digital Presence.

Thiago Novaes
je društevni znanstvenik, završio antropologiju i političke znanosti, UNICAMP 2001. Brazil. Aktivist slobodnog radija za Radio Muda od 1997. Istraživaè interaktivnosti za brazilski digitalni TC projekt SBTVD u 2002. i 2003.
Član je subimidia kolektiva koji je davao odašiljaće za poboljšanje lokalne komunikacije širom Brazila. Generalni je koordinator programa Cultura Viva, Cultural Points projekta ministarstva kulture Brazila. Također je član brazilske nacionalne koordinacije Casas Brasil, ITI, Civil House-a i predsjedništva Brazila. Nadgleda projekt Workshop Free Knowledge Free Culture.Svi njegovi projekti provode se u skladu s FOSS kodecima, dok su licencirani i objavljeni kroz fleksibilne licence poput CreativeCommons.

Maris Boras
‘After realizing that the future hacker is being successfully implemented into the present time, the broadband spectrum from outer space showed that my attendance in first MMKamp has finally gain the dimension of purpose.

So there I am taking the same shape that was given to me last year, all in order to make this situation as harmful as possible for the space continuum in question.’

Long contribution to Free Radio: Stanica M.I.R. and her dedication when working has proven Maris as a worth collaborator for Free Traveling Radio.

Now, the ghost of her lingers as she is longing for the Ocean, where her origin is.

Ivan Nikolić - Lesh
‘I’m a wannabe coder playing with software evolution, AI, datamining, worms, paranoia, robotix and crappy drawing.

Most of the time, I’m driven by terrible voices’

To work with Lesh is experience we enjoy the most because of his outlook on reality where cyber world gets entangled with our daily realities. He is a person that looks for a wireless connections for us there where is almost impossible to get it, he turns the light off in city of Dubrovnik with one movement of his left finger, he amuses us with cellular machines that make digital music so much more fun…

Anna Sobczak
Transnational artist living in Brazil and experimenting with freedom.

Interested in Carnival and Chinese carnival snakes, free media, free and open spaces and occupations, sharing goods and good time.

Anna speaks more languages that we can count, making her a futile soil for getting into computer languages. Her plyfulnes brings a cheer to radio shows and to all places we have been.
She was part of traveling radio at Zadar, Rijeka and Labin and she will be back with us for a festival in Karlovac.

Giuliano Djahjah Bonorandi
has been working with radio production since 2001, participating in Rádio Interferência, a free radio, that is placed in the south of Rio de Janeiro.

He also collaborates in networks of tactical media and free software around Brazil like Estúdio Livre, RádioLIvre.oRg and Descentro.

His experience in electronics and radio set was precious for setting up gambiarra (work on spot with what you have) cables and making them work.

His work on internet radio has collected people from all around the world to become part of program making at FRSM in Croatia.

Tatiana De Almeida Gouveia
has been involved in the independent movie scene in RIo de Janeiro.

As an editor, she has helped lots of independent productions and as movie maker has created Miopia Filmes.

She is part of researching team in Croatian free culture. Her work will result in a video depicting different places and happening during her stay in Croatia.

Read here on MMKamp ‘06 participants >>