amberPlatform

Valentina Karga, born in Chalkidiki, Greece, is an artist and architect based in Berlin. Since 2018 she is also a professor for the initiation of artistic work in Design at HFBK Hamburg. Valentina’s projects encourage engagement and participation, facilitate practices of commoning and are concerned with sustainability. Working across different media and often inviting the public or community groups to complete the work, one can say that Valentina’s work lays somewhere between conceptual art, design/architecture and socially engaged practice. Sometimes, through dialogue and building prototypes in a DIY manner, they end up imagining alternatives for societal infrastructures, such as economic and pedagogic institutions. This is what she calls ‘Art as Simulation’. She is a founding member of Collective Disaster, an interdisciplinary group that works in the interstices of architecture and the social realm. She has been a fellow at the Graduate school, University of the Arts Berlin, a Saari Fellow in Finland and she has been awarded the Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research. Among others, her work has been shown at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, the transmediale festival, the Athens Biennial, the 1st Thailand Biennial, the Moscow Biennial for Young Arts, the Kiasma museum, and a major exhibition curated by Whitechapel Gallery. Currently, she is working for an upcoming solo show in Hippolyte Gallery, in Helsinki.

Danja Vasiliev (Russian: Даня Васильев, pronounced as: “Da-nya Vas-ile’-ev”) is a Critical Engineer born in Saint-Petersburg, currently living and working between Berlin and New York.

“..when a person gives self-control over to a computer and accepts
the default options without question, that person becomes a
cyborg..”

Vasiliev studies Systems and Networks through anti-disciplinary experimentation with hardware, firmware and software. Using computational platforms he engages in examination and exploitation of System and Network paradigms in both the physical and digital realms. Based on these findings, Vasiliev creates and exhibits works of Critical Engineering.

Since 1999 Vasiliev has been involved in computer-technology events, media-art exhibitions and seminars around the world. He has received a number of awards and mentions at Ars Electronica, Japan Media Art Festival, and Transmediale, among others.

In October 2011, together with his colleagues Julian Oliver and Gordan Savičić, Vasiliev coauthored The Critical Engineering Manifesto.

He gives public workshops and talks, as well as regularly teaching courses on topics of network insecurity, software/OS modification, hardware re-engineering, digital forensics and other technology related subjects.

In his work and daily computing, Vasiliev uses GNU/Linux software.
He propagandizes Open Source practices in all facets of life.

Rosi Grillmair (AT)

born in 1991, she is a creator and mediator of digital art as well as an artistic researcher and programmer interested in the furthest reaches of technological experimentation. She is mainly working with realtime processing and data visualisation using community driven coding tools like Processing and vvvv.

A recurring theme in her works is how humans reflect their behavior through machines and algorithms. She also conducted a series of works questioning the institutional art world and how we give value to art.

After finishing her education at the vocational school of arts and design in Linz she studied Interactive Media as well as Computer Science in Linz/AT and Multimedia Arts in Milan/IT. Since 2015 she is a student at the Master’s Program Interface Cultures.

Her works were exhibited at Ars Electronica Museum and Festival / AT, TADAEX 2015 /IR, Medialab Prado / ES, Gwangju Media Arts Festival /KR, amberplatform / TR and MKH Wels / AT. She was involved in the organization of digital art events like Ars Electronica Festival and NODE Forum for Digital Arts/Frankfurt. In 2011 she was part of the group of students who won the Golden Nica u19 at Prix Ars Electronica.

Martin Nadal (BSc) is an artist/creative coder based in Linz and studying the Interface Cultures program at KunstUni. In the past years he has collaborated in a variety of projects and taught some workshops related to art and technology. He is also interested in illustration and cinematography. His works have been shown at Visualizar 11 (Medialab Prado), Ars Electronica, AMRO Festival y Settimana della Scienza (Genova). IAMAS (jp). ZKM (de).

Candaş Şişman (1985, İzmir-Turkey) studied fine arts in high school and graduated from the Animation department of Eskişehir Anadolu University. He spent one year at university in the Netherlands, studying multimedia design. In 2011 he co-founded Nohlab, a studio producing interdisciplinary experiences around art, design & technology. He is also a member of NOS Visuals, which is a collaborative platform that creates real-time, sound-reactive audiovisual performances. For the last five years, he gives lectures on the interaction between sound and visuals in university.

Candaş Şişman has received several awards since 2007, among which is an Honorary Mention from Prix ARS Electronica Computer Animation/Film/VFX and Jury Selection Award in Art Division from 18th Japan Media Arts Festival. He participated in many exhibition and festival, such as Venice Architecture Biennale, TED X, ARS Electronica, Todaysart Festival and Japan Media Arts Festival. Candaş Şişman recently exhibited Sonicfield-01 Sound Installation in Venice Architecture Biennale and ‘FLUX’ audiovisual installation among İlhan Koman Hulda festival in İstanbul.

Candaş Şişman aims to manipulate our notion of time, space and motion by his work, using digital and mechanical technologies. Taking the natural sciences and universe as his reference point, the artist combines physical forms with digitally produced images. Thus a bridge between the physical world and the digital world becomes visible. The works of Şişman build on complex bases, but the forms are simple, allowing the audience to engage in intellectual interaction with the artwork, in which the “process” is the utmost important structural element.

The artist lives and works in İstanbul, and is represented by PG Art gallery in Turkey.

Ioana PĂUN is a young director working and researching internationally, having graduated from Goldsmiths University London and UNATC Bucharest. Her work explores the ways humans behave in ferocious political, economic and health circumstances. Ioana is often working with teams of investigative journalists and contemporary thinkers, pushing various ethical buttons.

Since 2012, Ioana has been working on a visibility platform for the “love industry”, together with artists, journalists and domestic workers from Mexico, Filipines and Romania, projects including Domestic Products or Natalia, Turn the light on i. Ioana was nominated for Cultural Inclusion Award as part of the Culture Fund Gala.

Paun’s performances and ideas got support from contemporary performance art institutions such as Theatre Royal Stratford East, Kunstraum Lakeside, CEC ArtsLink, Teatro Luna Chicago, National Theatre Iasi, Ashtar Theatre Palestine, Teatrul Mic, Schauspielhaus Wien, Schaubühne Theatre, Museum for the arts of the 21st century MAXXI Roma, British Council, Onassio Centre in Athens, Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest.

Ioana has recently started coordinating the Performace Programme at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.

*1964 in Ohlsdorf/Gmunden (A); 1982–1985 studies of Biology and Botanics, Universität Wien (A); 1985–1990 studies of Sculpture, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna; 1991–1993 post-graduate-studies, Städelschule, Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt/Main (under Peter Weibel); since 1992 collaboration with Laurent Mignonneau; since 1995 Artistic Director and Researcher, ATR Media Integration and Communications Research Laboratories, Kyoto (J); 1997 editor of the publication »Art @ Science«; since 1997 Associate Professor, International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS), Gifu (J); lives and works in Kyoto (J).
The works of Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau explore the relationship between art, science and technology. They develop simulations of Artificial Life and creative environments for interaction and participation. The confrontation of real and virtual systems requires conscious interaction and exemplifies the interdependence and cooperation of both models.