Roderick Coover
Roderick Coover (b. 1967) is the creator or co-creator of works of digital, interactive and emergent cinema and digital arts such as Toxi•City, Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project, and The Theory of Time. He is also the maker of documentary films and interactive, documentary research projects such as The Unknown Territories Project, From Verite to Virtual: Conversations On The Frontiers Of Anthropology And Documentary Film, The Language of Wine: An Anthropology of Work Wine And The Senses and Cultures In Webs: Working In Hypermedia With The Documentary Image. His works are designed for the screen, interactive media, database cinema, photographic installation, online multimedia publication, gaming platforms and other Web media, and he has been a pioneering creator of some of the earliest forms of interactive cinema and digital, ethnographic arts. His works — both of fact and fiction — blend arts and research, and blur conventional, disciplinary boundaries. His is also the author or co-author of numerous works about creative practice and theory in print, including the book, Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology In The Humanities And Arts (University of Chicago Press). He is Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University, Philadelphia, where he is the Founding Director of the PhD-MFA Program in Documentary Arts and Visual Research, the MA Program in mediaXarts:Cinema for New Technologies and Environments and the Graduate Certificate Program in Documentary Arts and Ethnographic Practice. He holds degrees from the University of Chicago (PhD 1999), Brown University (MA 1994) and Cornell University (1989). His work is internationally exhibited and reviewed, and he has received Fulbright, Mellon, Whiting and LEF awards, among others. Learn more about his work at roderickcoover.com.
Scott Rettberg, photo by Henrik Beck, Olso International Poetry Festival
Scott Rettberg (b. 1970) is Professor of Digital Culture in the department of linguistic, literary, and aesthetic studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature, combinatory poetry, and films including The Unknown, Kind of Blue, Implementation, Frequency, The Catastrophe Trilogy, Three Rails Live, Toxi•City, Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project and others. His creative work has been exhibited both online and at art venues, including the Inova Gallery, Rom 8, the Chemical Heritage Foundation Museum, Palazzo dell Arti Napoli, Beall Center, the Slought Foundation, The Krannert Art Museum, and elsewhere. Rettberg was the project leader of ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice), a HERA-funded collaborative research project, from 2010-2013. Rettberg is leader of the Bergen Electronic Literature Research Group and director of the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. Rettberg was the conference chair of the 2015 Electronic Literature Organization international conference and festival in Bergen. Rettberg is the cofounder and served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization, where he directed major projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati (PhD 2002), Illinois State University (MA 1995), and Coe College (1992). Learn more about his work at retts.net.
Daria Tsopuikova, photo by UIC – Jenny Fontaine
Daria Tsoupikova, collaborating artist on Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project, is an Associate Professor in the School of Design and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research and artwork include development of virtual reality (VR) art projects and networked multi-user exhibitions for VR projection systems, such as the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment theatre (CAVE), as well as the design of interactive educational multimedia for children. Her VR research, publications and artwork explore the relationship between the aesthetics of virtual environments, traditional arts, and the effect of VR aesthetics on the user’s perceptions and emotions. Her work lies at the crossroads of artistic and technological innovation, and explores the potential of new media and interactivity in relation to traditional arts. Her current works are applications of computer graphics art to various research domains such as educational multimedia, cultural heritage and virtual rehabilitation for stroke survivors. Her work was exhibited and published at ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE VR, ISEA and many other venues.
Arthur Nishimoto, photo by UIC
Arthur Nishimoto, collaborating scientist on Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project, is a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Research Assistant at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include user interaction on large scalable resolution display environments, virtual reality, and video game design. He has previously developed interactive applications on the EVL Cyber-Commons multi-touch wall including the 20-foot Virtual Canvas and Fleet Commander which has been exhibited at SIGGRAPH and Supercomputing. He is currently working on user interface design for large multi-touch walls as well as designing immersive interactive applications for the CAVE2TM Hybrid-Reality Environment.
Nick Montfort
Nick Montfort, co-author of Three Rails Live, develops computational art and poetry, often collaboratively. His poetry books are #! and Riddle & Bind, and he co-wrote 2×6 and 2002: A Palindrome Story. His more than fifty digital projects include the collaborations The Deletionist, Sea and Spar Between, and the Renderings project. His collaborative and individual books from the MIT Press are: The New Media Reader, Twisty Little Passages, Racing the Beam, 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, and most recently Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities. He lives in New York and Boston, offers naming services as Nomnym, and is a professor at MIT. Find out more about his work at nickm.com.
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