Information as Reality Bios

Alessandro Ludovico

Alessandro Ludovico is an artist, media critic and chief editor of Neural magazine since 1993. He received his Ph.D. degree in English and Media from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (UK), has published and edited several books and has lectured worldwide. He’s one of the founders of Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural Publishers organisation). He also served as an advisor for the Documenta 12’s Magazine Project. He teaches at the Academy of Art in Carrara and NABA in Milan. He is one of the authors of the Hacking Monopolism trilogy of artworks (Google WIll Eat Itself, Amazon Noir, Face to Facebook).

Jaromil

Denis Roio, better known as Jaromil, is a software developer, activist and artist. For more than a decade his works have focused on computer viruses, piracy, freedom of speech, privacy and independent media practices. Jaromil’s software creations are recommended by the Free Software Foundation and redistributed in several GNU/Linux systems worldwide, while he is also an active contributor to media theory discourses. He was the receipt of the Vilem Flusser Award in 2009 and listed among the top 100 social innovators by Purpose Economy EU. Jaromil directs the Dyne.org Foundation and is a fellow of the Waag Society (Amsterdam) while completing his Ph.D on digital economies..

Aileen Derieg

Aileen Derieg is a translator based in Linz, Austria, whose work revolves mainly around contemporary art and media and theoretical reflections on society and technology. She is actively involved in the local independent art and culture scene in Linz, has been a member of the Genderchangers for many years and co-organized the Eclectic Tech Carnival 2007 in Linz. Since November 2012 she also runs the Werkstatt am Hauptplatz/Workshop in the Main Square, an open, unbureaucratic space for temporary use.

Ilja Braun

Ilja Braun hat Germanistik sowie Theater-, Film- und Fernsehwissenschaften in Berlin und Glasgow studiert, war Volontär beim Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch und Redakteur beim Kölner Emons Verlag im Bereich Medienhandbücher. Er hat u.a. für den Perlentaucher, die Süddeutsche Zeitung und die WELT geschrieben. Er hat in Kooperation mit u.a. der Deutschen Kinemathek Veranstaltungen konzipiert, die Pressearbeit des Verbands deutschsprachiger Literaturübersetzer betreut, den Redaktionen von iRights und Carta angehört und in der 17. Wahlperiode am Deutschen Bundestag als Referent der Linksfraktion die Arbeit der Enquete-Kommission „Internet und digitale Gesellschaft“ begleitet. Derzeit arbeitet er zu Verbraucherrechten in der digitalen Welt.

Leonhard Dobusch

Leonhard Dobusch forscht als Juniorprofessor für Organisationstheorie am Management-Department der Freien Universität Berlin u.a. zu transnationaler Urheberrechtsregulierung und dem Management digitaler Gemeinschaften. Nach Abschlüssen in Wirtschaftswissenschaft (2003) und Rechtswissenschaft (2004) an der Universität Linz promovierte er 2008 im DFG-Graduiertenkolleg “Pfade organisatorischer Prozesse” an der Freien Universität Berlin. Danach war er als Postdoc am Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung in Köln und an der FU Berlin tätig, unterbrochen durch Aufenthalte als Gastwissenschaftler an der Stanford Law School sowie dem Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin.

Andrea Hummer

Andrea Hummer ist Soziologin, Mitgründerin und Mitarbeiterin des eipcp – European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies. Sie ist weiters im Bereich Konzeption und Organisation von Projekten v.a. im Kulturbereich, als Moderatorin und PR-Beraterin tätig. Ehrenamtlich engagiert sie sich zudem in Organisation wie „maiz – Autonomes Integrationszentrum von und für Migrantinnen“, Radio FRO, IG Kultur Österreich und „kult-ex“.

Steve Kurtz

Steve Kurtz is a professor of art at the SUNY Buffalo, former professor of art history at Carnegie Mellon University and a founding member of the performance art group, Critical Art Ensemble. He is known for his work in BioArt, and Electronic Civil Disobedience, and because of his arrest by the FBI in May 2004. His work often deals with social criticism. Since its formation in 1987 in Tallahassee, Florida, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions.

Konrad Becker

Konrad Becker is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist. Director of World-Information.Net, a cultural intelligence agency, he is associated with several renown projects of advanced cultural practice including Public Netbase (1994 to 2006). Initiating many international conferences and exhibitions on technology, arts and culture he has published a large number of audiovisual productions, articles and books in several languages. A pioneering hypermedia wizard, he has been active in electronic media as an artist, author, composer as well as curator, producer and organizer.

Ushi Reiter

Ushi Reiter studied graphic and design at the Kunstuniverstät Linz. As artist and web developer with a special interesst in net.activism and audio-visual communication she has been collaborating with different groups and artists since 1998. She continues to research Free/Libre/Open Source Software in the frame of cultural production and art as well as work on conceptual and performative setups using electronic and analog media. Since June 2005 Reiter runs the non-profit cultural backbone organisation servus.at/Kunst & Kultur im Netz. (www.servus.at)

!Mediengruppe Bitnik

!Mediengruppe Bitnik live and work in Zurich/London. Using Hacking as an artistic strategy, their works re-contextualise the familiar to allow for new readings of established structures and mechanisms. They have been known to intervene into Londons surveillance space by hijacking CCTV cameras and replacing the video images with an invitation to play chess. In early 2013 !Mediengruppe Bitnik sent a parcel to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuodorian embassy. The parcel contained a camera which broadcast its journey through the postal system live on the internet. They call this work a system_test and a live mail art piece.

Marko Peljhan

Peljhan is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Media Arts and Technology at University of California. A native of Slovenia he founded the arts and technology organization Projekt Atol in the early 90’s and cofounded one of the first media labs in Eastern Europe, LJUDMILA in 1995. In the same year, the founded the technology branch of Projekt Atol called PACT SYSTEMS. He has been working on the Makrolab, a project that focuses on telecommunications, migrations and weather systems research and is coordinating the Arctic Perspective Initiative art/science/tactical media project.

Marion Hamm

Marion Hamm ist derzeit Postdoc am Institut für Volkskunde und Kulturanthropologie der Uni Graz, wo sie das Doktoratsprogramm Visuelle Kulturen koordiniert. Nach dem Studium der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft, Geschichte und Cultural Studies an den Universitäten Tübingen und Birmingham promovierte sie im Fach Soziologie an der Universität Luzern im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojekts zu Protest und Medien. Als Ethnographin forscht und schreibt sie an den Schnittstellen von Medienaktivismus und Wissenschaft zu sozialen Bewegungen, Prekarisierung, Medien und Erinnerung.