NEW YORK CITY BALLET

Adrian Danchig-Waring was born in San Francisco, California. In October 2002 he became an apprentice with New York City Ballet, and in June 2003 he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet. In February of 2009 Mr. Danchig-Waring was promoted to soloist and became a principal in February 2013.

DIRECTOR/ANIMATOR

Alex Budovsky born in Leningrad, Soviet Union, in 1975, moved to New York in 1994, moved to South America in 2010. 2002 - present: Animator / director of animated music videos, educational animations, independent shorts and commercial ads, that received awards at many festivals around the world, including Sundance, Tribeca and Florida Film Festival.

TRANSDISCIPLINARY ARTIST

Allison Costa is a dancer, creative technologist, and transdisciplinary artist. Her work has been presented at Symphony Space, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Fabrica, MoMA, Center for Performance Research, and the Barnard Movement Lab. Allison’s autoethnographic research focuses on processes, interactions, and the evolving nature of systems, whether ecological, social, or temporal.

THE GRADUATE CENTER, CUNY

Alyssa Kitt Hanley is a creative powerhouse of burlesque and a critical thinker of striptease culture. She is an award-winning performer, teacher, journalist, physical dramaturg, producer and Director of the Australian Burlesque Museum. Alyssa’s research is sensorially entangled with the mediation, production, dissemination and circulation of pleasure, and eroto-technologies. She is undertaking her PhD at CUNY Graduate Center.

LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Andreina Y. Zama-Diaz oversees the Artist-in-Residence program and Collider Fellowship at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She reimagines traditional residency models, offering radical holistic support for artists, particularly in new media. She’s held positions at The New Museum and the National Academy of Design and holds a degree in Studio Art from The Cooper Union. 

BARD GRADUATE CENTER

Andrew Kircher is a creative producer, dramaturg, and teacher. He is Director of Public Humanities + Research at Bard Graduate Center. He led The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Initiative and was associate director of Under the Radar Festival. He has collaborated with 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Flako Jimenez, and Janani Balasubramanian. PhD, CUNY Graduate Center.

DIRECTOR

Annie Dorsen is a director and writer whose works explore the intersection of algorithmic art and live performance. Her performances have been widely presented at numerous theaters and festivals in the U.S. and internationally. She has contributed essays for The Drama Review, Theatre Magazine, Etcetera, Frakcija, and PAJ, among others, and has taught at University of Chicago and Bard College. Dorsen has received a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. She is a 2024 graduate of NYU School of Law, where she focused on tech law and public policy.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIRECTOR

Annie Saunders is a multidisciplinary creator and director of site-specific experiences, and has made award-winning installations and performance works for major arts institutions as well as immersive projects in disused buildings and experiential works for public space. She is a member of the inaugural ONX Studio and an alumnus of the Devised Theater Working Group at the Public Theater. Saunders is the founder and artistic director of site-specific performance company Wilderness.

MARTHA GRAHAM SCHOOL

Ashley Brown is the Director of the Martha Graham School and consults at The Juilliard School in the K-12 division. With over 15 years of experience developing K-12 dance curriculum, she is a graduate of Florida State University (MFA, Dance Performance and Choreography) and Spelman College (BA, Child Development).

DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION

Ashley Ferro-Murray is the Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Foundation, overseeing grantmaking and advancing support for performing artists. Formerly a senior curator at EMPAC, her work and research in performance studies have been widely published. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Performance Studies.

CULTUREHUB

Billy Clark is the Artistic Director of CultureHub and has overseen the development of CultureHub’s artistic, education, and community programs since 2009.His work has been seen at GBGBs, P.S. 122, Theatre for a New City, the Brooklyn Museum, and Asia Society.

DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER

Brandon Powers is a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. Blending his background in dance, theatre, and immersive technology, his work focuses on capturing liveness in the digital, building interdisciplinary communities, and shifting culture towards a more embodied future. At Musical Theatre Factory, Brandon leads MTFxR, a program supporting the development of XR musical theatre experiences. He is a Onassis ONX Studio member, NEW INC alum, and Lincoln Center Collider Fellow.

CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Brian Rogers is a director, video and sound artist, co-founder and artistic director of The Chocolate Factory Theater, which supports the creation of theater, dance, music and multimedia performances at its post-industrial facility in LIC, Queens. Brian is a MacDowell Fellow, and has had residencies at Yaddo and Mount Tremper Arts. In addition to his own work, Brian curates The Chocolate Factory’s artistic program (now in its 20th year) which supports the work of more than 100 theater, dance, music and interdisciplinary artists each year.

HARVESTWORKS

Carol Parkinson is the Executive Director of Harvestworks, a digital media arts center located in New York City. Since 1987, her focus has been on the development of experimental artworks that explore sound, data and other emerging technologies. She is the producer of the current Harvestworks Art and Technology Program and the 2007 - 2019 New York Electronic Art Festival.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Dr. Chaitanya Baru is Senior Advisor in NSF's new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate. He joined NSF in October 2022 after a 25-year career at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego. 

MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY

Christine Giancatarino (she/her) is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Writing Studies at Montclair State University. Her pedagogical interests explore the way embodied inquiry and somatic awareness serve as a platform for writing, meaning-making, and performance. She received her MFA in Theater (Dramaturgy) from Columbia University.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Danielle Russo is a choreographer and performer, artivist and community organizer, and scholarly educator working in aesthetics, philosophies, and thresholds of experimental dance and performance on the continuum of intermedia and socially engaged artwork. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance & Critical Dance Studies in the Department of Performing & Media Arts at Cornell University.

PURCHASE COLLEGE

David Bassuk is a Theater, Transmedia, Immersive, and Spatial Narrative Professor at Purchase College, SUNY, FH Salzburg, Austria, and for UNAMI in Iraq. Bassuk specializes in creatively combining live and virtual performances. Focused on devising/developing curriculum and cultural production, offering expertise in design methods for collaboration and co-creation.

CORNELL TECH

Deborah Estrin is the Tishman Professor of Computer Science, Associate Dean for Impact, and founder of the Public Interest Technology Initiative (PiTech) at Cornell Tech. Current research activities focus on Digital Health. Earlier research included distributed and participatory sensing, mobile technologies, and Internet protocols. Honors: AAAS, NAE, NAM, MacArthur Fellow.

PRATT INSTITUTE

Deborah Johnson designs multifaceted visual experiences for stage and screen, collaborating with artists like Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Sofi Tukker. Her work has been featured at Coachella, Disney Concert Hall, and MoMA. A 2023 NYSCA grant recipient, she is a Professor at Pratt Institute, teaching Time+Movement and Light/Color/Design.

BALLET HISPÁNICO

Eduardo Vilaro is the Artistic Director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico. Vilaro has infused Ballet Hispánico’s legacy with a vision that centers the voices of the Latinx(a/o) community, developing programming to build leadership and invite new narratives for the arts landscape.

THE INTERACTIVE & IMMERSIVE HQ

Elburz Sorkhabi, co-founder of The Interactive & Immersive HQ, is a leading TouchDesigner developer and immersive technology educator. He has led projects for Google, Netflix, Nike, Under Armour, IBM, VISA, and countless Fortune 500 companies globally across North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.

MARYMOUNT MANHATTAN COLLEGE

Elisabeth Motley, PhD is a disability community dance artist, scholar, and activist. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College and an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Motley was a 2018-19 Fulbright US-UK Scholar and has published in Dance Chronicle and Choreographic Practices Journal.

NEA

Emma Bartley is a Film & Media Arts Program Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts. In this role, she manages a portfolio of federal grants for arts organizations nationwide working with film, video, emerging and electronic media, and engages in field-building initiatives to support the greater creative ecosystem for artists and contemporary art professionals.

WAXFACTORY/SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Erika Latta is the Artistic co-Director of WaxFactory (NYC). WaxFactory continues to nurture a hybrid approach, based on unconventional narrative styles, originally dramaturgy, visual and physical rigor, technological experimentation, and site-responsive work. With the company, she works as a director, writer, actor, and sound designer having presented work in international venues and festivals throughout Europe and Latin America. Erika is an Associate Director of the French site-specific company Begat Theater. She is an Assistant Professor of Theatre & Performance at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

BMCC

Professor Felecia Harrelson is a Lecturer, Deputy Chair, and Speech Co-Coordinator in the Speech, Communication, and Theatre Department. In addition to her work as a performer, she has also worked as a director and choreographer for Theatre for Young Audiences at TADA! Youth Theatre.

BARNARD COLLEGE

Guy de Lancey is the Associate Director of the Movement Laboratory for research and practice in creativity and emerging technology, Barnard College, Columbia University. He works in film, theater, directing, cinematography, lighting design, research in narrative design, process design, and interactive technology. He is a Salzburg Global fellow (2024) and is co-author on an AI literacy curriculum for Creating Futures: Art and AI for Tomorrow’s Narratives.

ARTIST

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a New York-based artist and biohacker who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material (hair, cigarette butts, chewed up gum) collected in public places.

ARTIST/THE CLEMENTE CENTER

Itziar Barrio’s survey exhibition was curated by Johanna Burton (L.A. MOCA Director) in 2018, and her monograph was published by SKIRA in 2023. Barrio has recently been awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship and 2024 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow. She is a member of the New Museum’s incubator, NEW INC, and a long term artist in residence at The Clemente.

INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST

Jade Charon is an interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, filmmaker, and international dance educator, hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin living in Brooklyn. Charon received an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in Dance and Theater from Columbia College Chicago. Charon was awarded the 2020 Hicks Choreographer Fellowship from the School of Jacob's Pillow where she received mentorship from Dianne McIntyre and Risa Steinberg.

ARTIST

James Scruggs, is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow, writer, performer and producer creating topical, interactive, theatrical work usually about race, racism and inequity. He was recently commissioned by PAC to write The American Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an imagining facilitated by an A.I. that the audience “creates” in real time, every night.

ARTIST

Janet Biggs is a research-based interdisciplinary artist known for immersive work in video and performance. Her work has been exhibited and collected in museums and institutions worldwide. She is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, and has received support from NYSCA and the NEA. Biggs is a member of the New Museum’s incubator, NEW INC, and The Explorers Club.

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS

Janet Wong is the Associate Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. She collaborates closely with Bill T. Jones on the company’s works as well as curating the presenting, commissioning and residency programming at Live Arts.

NEA

Jax Deluca is the NEA Film & Media Arts Director and oversees federal resources and grants supporting film and media arts activities across the nation. She also led the NEA’s first U.S.-based Arts & Technology Field Scan, which culminated in a report Tech as Art: Supporting Artists Who Use Technology as a Creative Medium.

GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Jean-Christian (“JC”) Jung is a Managing Partner of Global Sustainable Future (GSF). He focuses on financing of clean technologies and large scale projects in Energy, Mobility, Water, Air and Carbon. He also advises Cleantech startups and large corporations with their Net Zero Strategy. He serves at the advisory boards of Bloom, Civilized, FescoEnergy and the Greentech Festival. He is an Ambassador for the Ice Memory Foundation.

UCLA

Jeff Burke is professor of theater and associate dean, research and technology at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT). He co-directs the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance (REMAP), a joint effort of TFT and the Samueli School of Engineering.

ARTIST

Jerron Herman is a disabled artist compelled to create images of freedom. He has premiered works at Danspace Project, PSNY, and The Whitney. He has activated museums like The Met, Cooper Hewitt, a Smithsonian Design Museum and Guggenheim. Jerron is also the choreographer and co-director of Sensorium Ex, a new opera.

WEST POINT MUSIC RESEARCH CENTER

Sgt. Major Jeremy Schlegel (Researcher, West Point Music Research Center) holds a Bachelor of Music from Ithaca College and Master of Public Administration (Management/Operations) from John Jay College. Schlegel’s research focuses his passion for team-based approaches intersecting Science, Art, and Sound by collaborating with industry leaders, government entities, and scholars.

EDGE EFFECT MEDIA GROUP

Jessica Applebaum is a dramaturg, community engagement coordinator, and scholar whose 20-plus years practice is rooted at the intersections of contemporary performance and social action. She is co-founder of Edge Effect Media Group, a think-and-do-tank that gathers polydisciplinary pioneers into collective creation. Currently, Jess is a PhD Candidate at CUNY Graduate Center.

VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR/AI DEVELOPER

Jiri Kilevnik is a cutting-edge Visual Effects Supervisor at Framestore, where he brings blockbuster visions to life for clients like Marvel Studios, Netflix, etc. Known for pioneering the integration of AI in VFX, Jiri pushes the boundaries of what’s possible on screen, blending technology and artistry to create next-level cinematic experiences.

THEATER ARTIST

Joshua William Gelb is an Obie and Drama League Award winning theater director, performer, and creative technologist whose digital performance laboratory, Theater in Quarantine, continues to operate from an East Village closet. TiQ has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and has been a five-time NYTimes Critic's Pick.

INTERACTIVE MEDIA ARTIST

Joshue Ott is a New York-based performer and software designer. Ott is the creator of superDraw, an instrument for live spatial audiovisual improvisations, performing at venues ranging from Mutek to Carnegie Hall. He also creates apps, including Thicket, 3Draw, Pitch Painter with Morton Subotnick, and the Variant series.

INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST

Joselia Rebekah Hughes is a Mad and disabled Afro-Caribbean descended writer, student, artist, and educator based in the Bronx. Joselia lives with sickle cell disease and ADHD. Joselia is one of the poetry editors for Apogee Journal.

BMCC, CUNY

Karl O'Brian Williams is a multiple award-winning actor, creative writer, playwright and educator involved in arts education and theatre for social justice and transformation. He was nominated for a 2021 Audie Award in the category Literary Fiction & Classics for his narration of Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family. Williams currently teaches in the theatre program in the department of Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts at BMCC/CUNY, NYU, and Randolph College. He is the Artistic Director for Braata Productions, a non-profit Caribbean Arts Organization.

PLAYWRIGHT

Kat Mustatea is a transmedia playwright who experiments with language, live performance, and the computational uncanny to reconfigure what it means to be human in the digital age. Her project, BodyMouth, a sound-movement instrument that turns the body into an organ for speech, was a finalist for the Guthman Prize.

NYU Tisch

Katherine Helen Fisher is an Emmy-nominated director, choreographer, and performer. She merges dance with technology in immersive installations. A former Lucinda Childs Dance Company member, she is curating an exhibition at Jacob's Pillow, researching AI in performance, and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU Tisch.

TRANSFER

Kelani Nichole is a technologist and the founder of TRANSFER, an experimental media art space exploring decentralized networks, virtual worlds and online performance in contemporary art since 2013. She is a visiting scholar at NYU's Integrated Design and Media Program where she's building the TRANSFER Data Trust, a decentralized artist-owned archive and cultural value exchange cooperative.

NYU COMPUTER SCIENCE

Kenneth H. Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, founding director of the Media Research Lab at NYU, director of the Future Reality Lab at NYU, and the Director of the Games for Learning Institute.

JACOB'S PILLOW

Kim Chan is Associate Artistic Director at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival where she serves on the curatorial team and manages the programming, school, production, archives, and community engagement departments. She also serves on the boards of Mid-Atlantic Arts, MAP Fund, PCC, and Pick Up Performance Company.

PROTOTYPE & HERE

Kristin Marting is a director of hybrid work based in NYC. Recent projects include Silent Voices at BAM, Looking at You; Trade Practices, an immersive theatrical experience. Kristin is Founding Co-Director of PROTOTYPE, an annual festival of contemporary opera-theatre and music theatre works, and Founding Artistic Director Emeritus of HERE, an award winning multi-arts center in lower Manhattan.

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Lawrence Shea is an artist and educator creating visuals and interactivity for theater and fine art events. His work with The Builders Association has focused on using phone-based interaction for live events; via an augmented reality “app” used throughout "The Elements of Oz," and then a mobile interactive site, both for “I Agree to the Terms,” and for the upcoming Atlas Drugged, premiering in October at NYU Skirball. He is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Video & Media Design and is the Area Chair of Design for the School of Drama.

CORNELL TECH

Dr. Lior Zalmanson (he/him/his) is an award winning researcher, artist, and curator who uses film, performance, and digital technologies to explore the information society. His projects have been showcased at venues including the AKG Gallery Museum, Buffalo, Tribeca Film Festival and the New School Galleries, NYC. He is currently a research fellow at the Digital Life Initiative, Cornell Tech.

ONASSIS ONX & NEW INC

Lisa Jamhoury is a Lebanese-American movement artist and programmer creating embodied, computational experiences. Rooted in contemporary circus and mindfulness, her practice includes interactive performances, installations, and websites that encourage a consensual, celebratory approach to humanity’s shared physicality. Lisa is a member at Onassis ONX and NEW INC, the New Museum’s incubator for art, technology and design. She teaches at NYU ITP.

NEW MEDIA ARTIST & CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST

Louise Lessél is a Danish New Media Artist and Creative Technologist based in New York. She creates sculptures, digital projections, interactive installations and scenography, and has been involved in the live performance industry for 10 years, mostly working with light, music and theater artists, to bring new visions to life.

THE GRADUATE CENTER, CUNY

Maria Litvan is an artist-scholar, currently a doctoral candidate at CUNY Graduate Center. Her research centers in Latin American theatre and performance, focusing on questions of embodiment, memory, and transmission. Her dissertation explores the intra-relation between absence and presence in transmission processes that take place within performance practices in the Americas.

ARTIST

Mary Esther Carter sings from her guts. Tuning into a raw and deeply soulful place, her sound transports you to a familiar yet uncharted territory. Inspired by artists like  Mahalia Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, Cat Power, and Tom Waits, her 2019 debut EP entitled “Doula”, blends elements of Folk, Blues, and Trip Hop with a flare for the experimental. Her hypnotic and visceral live performances have captivated audiences across the country.

ARTIST

Matt Romein is an artist and performer based in Brooklyn NY. His work consists of live performance, virtual production, generative computer art, and multi-media installation. He is a NYFA/NYSCA 2023 Artist Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts and a Studio Member at Onassis ONX Studio.

DIRECTOR

Mei Ann Teo (they/them) is a theatre maker working at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice towards investigations of liveness and revelation from sources of lived experience. They have served as the artistic director of Musical Theatre Factory, the associate artistic director and director of new work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and is currently an artistic leader at Ping Chong and Company.

PAC NYC

Meiyin Wang is the Director of Producing and Programming at Perelman Performing arts Center (PAC NYC). Her previous appointments include Festival Director of La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls, a site-specific festival in San Diego; and Co-Director of Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater.

IMMERSIVE STORYTELLER

Michaela Ternasky-Holland is a Peabody-nominated and Emmy award-winning director who specializes in creating impactful stories using immersive technology. She directed a short film utilizing Open AI’s SORA and was a nominee for the PGA Innovation Award. She is recognized as one of the 100 Original Voices of XR and Blooloop’s 50 Immersive Influencers.

MICROSOFT

Michael Kelleher is a creative tech project leader and a professional musical theatre performer. Currently, he is a Product Manager at Microsoft and previously spent time at Walt Disney Imagineering, developing new theme park projects for young children. As a performer, he has acted in numerous shows around the country.

BMCC, CUNY

Dr. Mohammad Azhar is a professor of computer information systems at BMCC, CUNY. He is the PI of the NSF's Technology Learning Community projects on computational thinking and AI across the curriculum. Dr. Azhar is also the director of the AI and Tech Equity Innovation Hub for social good projects.

CUNY

Neha Lohia is a versatile filmmaker, storyteller, and conscious entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in advertising, Hollywood, and Bollywood. Her award-winning work, deeply rooted in spirituality, empowers women and elevates consciousness. Currently, she is a student of cinema at CUNY, exploring immersive technologies blended with conscious storytelling to foster global human connections and healing.

EDGE EFFECT MEDIA GROUP

Nic Benacerraf is a creative director, scenographer, and scholar of live performance. He is co-founder of Edge Effect Media Group, a think-and-do-tank that gathers polydisciplinary pioneers into collective creation. Currently, Nic teaches directing in the Brown/Trinity MFA program and is finishing a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center. 

DANCE ARTIST

Olive Prince is a movement-based artist, performer, and educator. Her work focuses on corporeal intuition and crafting dance in relationship to unique spaces, installation, objects, costuming, and other art forms. Prince is a Visiting Lecturer in Dance at Cornell University.

MOVEMENT ARTIST

Omri Drumlevich is a movement artist, creating dance for the stage and for the screen, currently based in New York City. Omri began his education in dance at The Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance High School where he had graduated with honors and shortly after joined Batsheva- The Young Ensemble in 2010. Omri danced in Batsheva Dance Company under Artistic Director Ohad Naharin until 2017. Omri was acting rehearsal director for Batsheva Dance Company in 2021.

DIRECTOR

Phil Soltanoff's projects include THIS & THAT, AN EVENING WITH WILLIAM SHATNER ASTERISK, SITSTANDWALKLIEDOWN, I/O, L.A. PARTY, PLAN B and MORE OR LESS, INFINITY. Recipient of The Doris Duke Creative Exploration Fund Award (2009), The Jim Henson Award for Innovation (2023) and the Herb Alpert Award in Theatre (2020).

NYU IMMERSIVE COMPUTING LAB

Qi Sun is an assistant professor at New York University. Before joining NYU, he was a research scientist at Adobe Research. He received his PhD at Stony Brook University. His research interests lie in VR/AR, perceptual computer graphics, display, and computational cognition. He is a recipient of the IEEE Virtual Reality Best Dissertation Award. With colleagues, his research has been recognized as several best paper and honorable mention awards at ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE ISMAR, IEEE VR, and IEEE VIS.

AI DEVELOPER

Richard is a developer of robotics and ai, using music and creativity as a medium to program better interactions, understandings and models. He is currently a Research Fellow at Macquarie University, developing new robotic musicians, and has worked as a freelance music technologist, composer and performer, including 15 years as a professional saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist.

EYEBEAM

Roddy Schrock is an arts organizer and curator. As a non-profit leader, he specializes in building institutional capacity and conceives and implements programs that elevate artists' works in society. As the executive director of Eyebeam, he guides its focus to realign societal relationships with emergent technologies. He is also the host of Informer, a podcast featuring casual conversations with leading artists, technologists, and thinkers.

FLOURID

Rylan Peery works at the intersection of ethics, technology, culture, and sustainable economics. A graduate of Stanford University's Human Biology program, Rylan co-founded the transnational tech co-op, CoLab.coop. Rylan's work today as a co-op social entrepreneur explores whether AI advances might be guided by inclusive design methods and humane design principles to support human connection, artistic flourishing and just economy.

NEW MEDIA ARTIST

Sadah Espii Proctor (she/hers/Espii) is an XR director and sound/media designer for live performance and immersive experiences. She was recognized by American Theatre Magazine for multimedia storytelling in the “Six Theatre Artists to Know” series, and she also received a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Media Design. Her work encompasses global stories of women, social issues, and the African Diaspora, often with an Afrofuturist/Cyberpunk lens.

ARTIST

Sister Sylvester makes visual essays in live-performance, film and new media. Recent work includes book-performances Constantinopoliad (2023), and The Eagle and The Tortoise (2020); essay-film Our Ark (2021, co-dir Deniz Tortum) and virtual reality installation Shadowtime (2023, co-dir Deniz Tortum). Her work has been presented at venues including the Venice Film Festival, Onassis Stegi, Internationaal Theater of Amsterdam, IDFA, CPH:DOX and MOMI.

NYU PROGRAM IN EAST ASIAN STUDIES

Thomas Looser (PhD in Anthropology, U. of Chicago) is Chair and Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at NYU. His areas of research include cultural anthropology and Japanese studies; new/digital media studies; critical theory and globalities; and performance, art, architecture and urban form.

ARTIST

Un Joo Christopher is a theater artist, writer and poet. She is currently developing her solo piece, “Say My Name,” which explores the dichotomous interactions of her Korean Chinese heritage and her Midwestern upbringing. Her work also explores the future of AI integration in the arts, specifically concerning the development process. 

CORNELL TECH

Dr. William Leon is a creative technologist, entrepreneur, and Instructor in Emerging Digital Technologies at Cornell Tech. His interests lie in the use of digital computing systems in disciplines from science and manufacturing to media and art. Dr. Leon is a former Art fellow and XR prototyper at Cornell.

MUSICIAN

Yves Dhar plays the cello. He has played it in famous places (Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, NYC FASHION WEEK, United Nations, Rikers Island) and not-so-famous places (schools for special needs, children’s hospitals, youth sports clubs, retirement homes, designer boutiques). He has shared the stage with many celebrated artists (Itzhak Perlman, Christina Aguilera, Arijit Singh, Bert from Sesame Street).

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM

For the past decade, Zev Greenfield has served as the Executive Director & Chief Curator of ISSUE Project Room, the pioneering Brooklyn-based performance nonprofit. He is a leading arts manager, curator, fundraiser and strategist with an MBA from Columbia Business School and over 25 years of progressive global experience.