Jamie Allen

IXDM Senior Researcher Jamie Allen’s interests lie in the ways that creative uses of technology teach us about who we are as individuals, cultures and societies. Born in Canada, and working primarily between New York, the UK, Copenhagen and now Basel, Allen has been involved with emerging technologies as a designer, researcher, artist and teacher for over 12 years. His work has been exhibited internationally, from Eyebeam in New York City, to the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, to SIGGRAPH Asia in Yokohama, Japan. Allen draws on his experience as a concurrent Senior Researcher with the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), and a former part of the directorial team of Culture Lab, Newcastle University, where he worked towards understanding community, collaborative and public technological practices.

He has worked as an interactive systems designer for IBM, DuPont, ESI Design and the American Museum of Natural History.

Hasan Bakhshi

Director Creative Economy Nesta, London, United Kingdom

Hasan Bakhshi is the director of Creative Economy in Policy & Research at Nesta in the UK. His recent work includes the ‘Next Gen’ skills review of the video games and VFX industries, which has led to wholesale reforms of the school ICT and computing curriculum in England, and the ‘Manifesto for the Creative Economy’, which sets out ten recommendations by which governments can help the creative economy grow. Bakhshi also devised the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, which has been piloted in England, Scotland and Wales, and rolled out in a three-year partnership with Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Prior to Nesta, Bakhshi was an executive director at Lehman Brothers, and Deputy Chief Economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He spent eight years as an economist at the Bank of England. Bakhshi has a BA in Economics from Cambridge and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.

Dusan Barok

Dusan Barok

Dušan Barok is a writer, editor and artist. He graduated from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. For over a decade, he has been known as editor of Monoskop, a wiki for collaborative studies of the arts, media and humanities. He is also a member of the artist collective La Société Anonyme. Dušan lives and works in Bergen, Norway, where he recently organised a series of seminars on media aesthetics, entitled ’The Extensions of Many.’

Philippe Bischof

Since January 2011, Philippe Bischof has led the Culture Unit of the Mayoral Department of the Canton of Basel-Stadt. From 2008 to 2010, Bischof built up and managed SÜDPOL Lucerne (centre for performing arts) as its Artistic and Managing Director. He sat on the Berlin Senate Administration’s Jury for Theatre and Dance Promotion from 2007 to 2011 and has been a member of the jury of the Dance/Theatre Committee of the Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land since 2008. Between 1994 and 2007, he worked on open-air productions and in municipal theatres, mainly in Switzerland and Germany. He was a member of the management team at the Deutsches Theater Göttingen from 2002 to 2004. Since 2004, he has brought numerous projects in Austria, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Iceland to fruition, between 2005 and 2007 regularly working in Geneva (Théâtre du Grütli) and Lausanne (Théâtre du Vidy, HETSR La manufacture).

Johannes Bruder

Post-Doctoral Researcher, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland

Johannes Bruder is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Academy of Art and Design FHNW. He currently works on a project combining ethnographic techniques and practice-based research on underground electronic music scenes in the context of emerging creative economies. In general, his research spans the poles of critical media infrastructures, cognitive capitalism, design, popular culture, and the intricacies of making research public.

Flavia Caviezel

Flavia Caviezel is a researcher and vidéaste based in Switzerland with a background in visual anthropology, film studies and constitutional law. She has worked for more than ten years in research and teaching, at ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts and at HGK FHNW (ongoing), among other universities. For details about her latest research projects ‘RhyCycling’ and ‘Times of Waste’, as well as publications and lectures, see www.ixdm.ch. Her audio-visual training was at the School of Art Berne. Since 1991, she has been making independent documentary/essayistic video work for national and international festivals and exhibitions. She has carried out residencies and research studies in Australia, China, Laos, Mali, USA and in different Mid- and Southern European countries. Her research topics and themes of interest include: border issues, transitory and public spaces, research methodology and (interactive) presentation formats.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is drafting the 14th Istanbul Biennial, titled SALTWATER. A Theory of Thought Forms. She is the Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013–15), Getty Visiting Research Scholar (2015), and was recently appointed as Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino, commencing on January 1, 2016. Previously, she was the artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13) (2012); the artistic director of the 16th Biennale of Sydney, Revolutions—Forms That Turn (2008); and senior curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA affiliate in New York, from 1999 to 2001.

Kieran Corcoran

Head School of Art, Design and Printing - Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland

As Head of the Department of Design Kieran is responsible for organising, administering and leading a lecturing team of 40 full time and 35 parttime lecturers offering honours degree programmes in Visual Communications, Interior Design , Furniture Design and certificate level courses in Design Technology and Design Display. His previous position as Research Coordinator for the School of Art, Design and Printing involved the preparation of a Research Strategy for the school, the recruitment of M.Phil and P.Hd students, devising research projects and grant applications and representing the school at Faculty and Institute level.

Catherine David

Deputy director MNAM - Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Catherine David is a French art historian, curator and museum director. She was the first woman and the first non-German speaker to curate documenta in Kassel: the critically acclaimed documenta X in 1997. Currently deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Art (Musée National d'Art Moderne) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, she was curator of the ADACH (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage) Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009. Beforehand - in 2008 – she received the Bard Award for curatorial excellence in New York. In the period from 2002 to 2004 Catherine David was director of Witte de With in Rotterdam. Earlier, from 1990 to 1994, she was curator at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, and from 1982 to 1990 she was curator at the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou. David studied Spanish and Portuguese literature, linguistics and art history at the Université de la Sorbonne and the École du Louvre in Paris.

Francesco Erspamer

Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Francesco Erspamer is professor of Italian Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. He has previously taught at New York University, at the University of Rome and, as a visiting professor, at several other universities. During the summer he organizes a Harvard program in Milan and Siena on beauty, leadership and innovation. Erspamer is interested in aesthetics, the history of ideas, politics, soccer and cultural change in general; and has worked extensively on the Renaissance, the 19th and 20th century and contemporary issues.Erspamer’s other research interests include: intellectual history; the modern and contemporary Italian novel; and literature and politics. His most recent books are ‘The Creation of the Past: On Cultural Modernity’ and ‘Fear of Change: Crisis and Criticism of the Concept of Culture’.He is an active blogger. Erspamer’s book reviews appear weekly online in his page ‘Harvard Diary’, and on the website of Rai international.

Desmond Hui

Director, Culture and Development Consultancy/ Adjunct Professor HKIEd, Hong Kong

Desmond Hui is an architect and architectural historian by training. He is currently managing director of Culture and Development Consultancy Ltd, a consultancy company specializing in architecture, heritage, art, creative industries and cultural policies. He is at present Adjunct Professor at the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Culture Development Institute of the Communication University of China. He was selected as lead curator for the eleventh International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale Hong Kong Pavilion in 2008, and co-curator for 2012. He is the founding chairman of the Association for Cultural and Creative Industries, an NGO registered in Hong Kong dedicated to the promotion and development of cultural and creative industries. He was on the editorial board of The Creative Industries Journal (UK) and now serves as editorial board member of The International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries.

Kirsten M. Langkilde

Kirsten Merete Langkilde, Prof., is an artist and director of the FHNW Academy of Art and Design. After studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, she worked in London as an independent artist. In 1995 she was awarded a professorship (Aesthetische Praxis) at the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) Berlin, Germany; from 2001 to 2009 she was dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Media, and vice-president at the Berlin University of the Arts; from 2004 to 2008 she was vice-president of ELIA. Research and development projects include Optimierte Dialoge, Reflektiertes Tun (2010, in cooperation with the Berlin Academy of the Arts); Innovation Habitat (2006–2008, in the 6th Framework Programme of the EU); Re:search in and through the Arts (2004-2007, in cooperation with ELIA). She has been director of the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW in Basel since 2011.

Leo van Loon

Director European Creative Business Network, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Leo van Loon studied business economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Van Loon’s ambition is to empower individuals to contribute to society with their specific talents. Since its 2005 foundation, van Loon’s PopVox has coached over a thousand young people in entrepreneurship. Together with 15 agencies from 10 countries, Leo van Loon is founding partner and director of the European Creative Business Network, which represents 120 creative centres in 22 EU-countries. The main purpose of the European Creative Business Network is to contribute to establishing the EU as an accessible, effective and rewarding single market for creative and cultural entrepreneurs. The agency PopVox executes the activities of the European Creative Business Network. In 2008 Van Loon opened the Creative Factory Rotterdam, a creative incubator located in an old grain silo that houses over 70 companies, as well as a club and event halls.

Nicolaj van der Meulen

Co-Leader Institute Aesthetic Practice and Theory, FHNW Academy for Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland

Since 2013, Prof. Dr. Nicolaj van der Meulen has been co-head with Prof. Dr. Jörg Wiesel of the Institute Aesthetic Practice and Theory at HGK FNNW.His research covers aesthetic practice and design, image theory and has its historical focus in the early 20th and late 18th century. His habilitation, filed at the University of Hildesheim, was awarded for a thesis on image, area and performance in the late Baroque sacred space of Zwiefalten. From 2010 to 2012 Van der Meulen was head of the research project ‘Shaping the future. The image as a generator of innovation’ in the context of the Strategic Initiative FHNW. From 2009 to 2012, he coordinated the master program ‘Iconic Research and Visual Communication’. From 2009 to 2010 he worked on the National Research Focus ‘eikones’ at the University of Basel, specifically the project ‘Entwurf’, together with Michael Renner. From 2002 to 2007 Van der Meulen worked as an assistant and lecturer at the Art History Department of the University of Basel with Prof. Dr. Gottfried Boehm.

Luisa Perlo

Co-founding member a.titolo, Turin, Italy

Luisa Perlo is a co-founder of a.titolo. a.titolo is a non-profit organization established in Turin by a collective of curators and art historians made up of Giorgina Bertolino, Francesca Comisso, Lisa Parola, Nicoletta Leonardi and Luisa Perlo.a.titolo curates and produces public art and context-specific projects, exhibitions, workshops, documentaries and educational programmes; developing an interdisciplinary dialogue between the visual arts and urban design. a.titolo is the artistic direction of CESAC, Experimental Centre for Contemporary Art at Caraglio, Cuneo. In 2001, members Giorgina Bertolino, Francesca Comisso, Lisa Parola and Luisa Perlo were appointed as cultural mediators of the Nouveaux Commanditaires programme, aimed at producing art works commissioned by groups of citizens, and promoted by Fondation de France.On this subject, a.titolo edited the books Nuovi Committenti. Torino Mirafiori Nord and New Patrons. Contemporary art, society and public space

Michael Renner

Michael Renner experienced the digital revolution first-hand when he went to work for Apple Computer Inc. and The Understanding Business in California in 1986, after completing his diploma as a graphic designer at the Basel School of Design. Research and reflection upon the meaning of images in the context of digital technology became the central theme of Renner’s practical and theoretical design activities. He started teaching in 1990 in the Visual Communication Institute at the Basel School of Design (HGK FHNW) with an emphasis on information design, interaction design and design research. In 1999 he was named chairman of the institute. From 2009 until 2013 he was co-leader of the module ‘Image and Design Process’ at ‘eikones’, the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Iconic Research. He is a founding member of the European research network ‘What Images Do’, a collaboration between the Royal Academy in Copenhagen, the Düsseldorf Academy, TU Delft and the Basel School of Design.

Tina Saaby-Madsen

Tina Saaby-Madsen has been the Chief City Architect of Copenhagen since September 2010. She inspires, facilitates and advises politicians and the city administration. Her responsibility is to help define architectural guidelines and visions in developing the city based on The City of Copenhagen’s Architectural Policy. Tina Saaby graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture in 1997. She has many years of experience as an architect, partly as partner of the architectural firm Witraz Architects in Copenhagen, and was the former Vice President of the Danish Architects´ Association. She is also visiting professor at Sheffield University and external examiner at The University of Roskilde, The University of Copenhagen and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation. Additionally, Tina is the chairman of the advisory board at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

Pier Luigi Sacco

Pier Luigi Sacco is Professor of Cultural Economy and head of International Relations at the IULM University of Milan. Since September 2011, he has been Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Markets, and Heritage. Sacco also teaches Creative Industries at the University of Italian Switzerland (USI), Lugano. He holds a PhD in economics from the European University Institute, and is the author of more than one hundred and fifty papers appearing in international journals and edited books on the topics of economic theory, game theory, cultural economics, cultural and creative industries, and cultural policy design at the urban, regional and national level. He also writes for Il Sole 24 Ore, Saturno and Flash Art. Sacco is the president of the scientific committee of the International Festival of Contemporary Art, Faenza, and the president of the Cultural Observatory of Marche Region. He is a member of the scientific committee of the Italian National Library, Florence.

Matthias Tarasiewicz

Matthias Tarasiewicz has been active as a researcher and technology theorist since the turn of the last millennium. Deeply involved in coding and decoding (both literally and figuratively) he currently researches in the fields of artistic technology, experimental publishing and ‘cryptocurrencies’. Tarasiewicz founded 'Artistic Bokeh' (an initiative to qualitatively explore, map and extend the ‘electrosphere’ within the parameters of artistic research and development); and also co-founded CODED CULTURES – an international experimental (media) arts festival and research platform. He is the project lead of the ‘Artistic Technology Lab’, which is currently located at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. The Lab hosts EU-projects as well as basic research projects supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – such as Apertus AXIOM (the first open hardware professional film camera), and making.artistic.technology (an educational programme to rethink artistic practices with technology).

Jorg Wiesel

Co-Leader Institute Aesthetic Practice and Theory, FHNW Academy for Art and Design, Basel Switzerland

Since 2013, Prof. Dr. Jörg Wiesel has been co-head with Prof. Dr. Nicolaj van der Meulen of the Institute Aesthetic Practice and Theory at HGK FNNW.

From 2011 to 2013 Wiesel held a professorship on cultural studies and performance at the Institute of Fashion Design and Master Design Studio HGK FHNW. In 2007 he received his habilitation at the FU Berlin with a thesis on the cultural history of piracy. Wiesel was, from 2005 to 2010, visiting professor at the Department of Theatre Studies at the FU Berlin. His PhD on theatre and the monarchy in the 19th century won the Amerbachpreis of the University of Basel in 2001. In addition, he has been lecturer, researcher and assistant at the universities of Kiel, Giessen (Institute for Applied Theatre Studies), Basel and Zurich, and at the FU Berlin. From 1986 to 1988 he was assistant director at the Schauspielhaus Dortmund. From 1984 to 1990, he studied theatre and Literature in Munich.

Catherine Walthard

Institute HyperWerk HGK FHNW, Basel, Switzerland

Prof. Catherine Walthard holds her professor title at HGK FHNW, for the institute HyperWerk in the field of design practices. She is currently deputy head of HyperWerk, the Institute for Post-Industrial Design HGK FHNW, which she co-founded in 1999. She has over 30 years of teaching and directing experience in art education in Switzerland, and presents lectures and workshops in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Walthard’s professional activities extend to collaborations with theatres and art galleries and she also contributes as a jury member in art and university committees. The work ranges from fine arts drawings to multimedia productions that have received international awards and prizes. Her interests lie in the supervision of students’ projects, the design of portfolios, and work with photography and visual communication within the overall topic of cultural experiences in design education.

Regine Halter

Institute HyperWerk, Institute for Integrative Design / Masterstudio Design HGK FHNW, Basel, Switzerland

Prof. Regine Halter holds her PhD in Media Studies, Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Cologne. Since 1999 she has been teaching media and design theory at HyperWerk, the Institute of Post-industrial Design; and since 2008 at the Institute for Integrative Design/Masterstudio at HGK FHNW. She heads both institutes. In her former career, among other things, she also has been a dramaturge, and General Secretary, Project Director at the Deutscher Werkbund (DWB), conceiving and organizing public events usch as exhibitions and international conferences on design. Regine Halter is an author, co-author and editor too. Her interests lie in the changes in human apperception and conceptual acting by and through digital media; globalization in design; crosscultural studies and intercultural perspectives.

Anka Falk

Institute HyperWerk HGK FHNW, Basel, Switzerland

Anka Falk received her MA in Rhetoric and Educational Sciences from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Since 2007 she has been teaching rhetoric, media history and creativity at HyperWerk, the Institute of Post-industrial Design and Masterstudio at HGK FHNW, and since 2012 also at the School of Visual Arts Bern. From 2007 to 2009 she was co-head of HyperWerk. Since 2003 she has worked on trans-cultural EU projects, and since 2009 she has worked on questions of cultural difference in design education. Recently she has been concentrating on a pan-European interview project about different perspectives on current international crises with partners like Art Box, in Thessaloniki, Greece. She has been actively involved in conceiving and arranging conferences, exhibitions and editing publications in cooperation with HyperWerk and institutions like the Museum of Cultures, Basel, and the Theatre of Freiburg, Germany. Her interests lie in how to implement questioning of cultural spaces and differences into design understanding and education.