Erin Manning
Erin Manning holds a University Research Chair in Relational Art and Philosophy in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). She is also the director of the Sense Lab (www.senselab.ca), a laboratory that explores the intersections between art practice and philosophy through the matrix of the sensing body in movement. In her art practice she works between painting, dance, fabric and sculpture (http://www.erinmovement.com). Her current art project entitled Folds to Infinity is an experimental fabric collection composed of cuts that connect in an infinity of ways, folding in to create clothing and out to create environmental architectures. The next phase of this project explores the resonance between electromagnetic fields and movement through the activation of the existent magnets in Folds to Infinity. Her writing addresses the senses, philosophy and politics, articulating the relation between experience, thought and politics in a transdisciplinary framework moving between dance and new technology, the political and micropolitics of sensation, performance art, and the current convergence of cinema, animation and new media. Publications include Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009), Politics of Touch: Sense, Movement, Sovereignty (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2007) and Ephemeral Territories: Representing Nation, Home and Identity in Canada (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2003). Her forthcoming manuscript, Always More Than One: Individuation's Dance will be published by Duke University Press in 2011.

Brian Massumi
Brian Massumi specializes in the philosophy of embodied experience, media theory, and political philosophy. His research is two-fold: the experience of movement and the interrelations between the senses, in particular in the context of new media art and technology; and emergent modes of power associated with the globalization of capitalism and the rise of preemptive politics. He is currently completing a book project entitled Perception Attack: Philosophy of Experience for Times of War (MIT Press). His previous publications include include Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Duke University Press, 2002), A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (MIT Press, 1992), and First and Last Emperors: The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot (with Kenneth Dean; Autonomedia, 1993). He is editor of The Politics of Everyday Fear (University of Minnesota Press, 1993) and A Shock to Thought: Expression After Deleuze and Guattari (Routledge, 2002) and was the founding editor of the University of Minnesota Press book series Theory Out of Bounds (1991-2006; co-edited by Michael Hardt and Sandra Buckley). His translations from the French include Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus and Jacques Attali's Noise. He is a professor in the Communication Department of the Université de Montréal, where he directs the Workshop in Radical Empiricism (Atelier en empirisme radical). With Erin Manning of the SenseLab, Concordia University, he co-organizes a series of events and activities under the title "Technologies of Lived Abstraction" dedicated to the collective exploration of new ways of bringing philosophical and artistic practices into collaborative interaction. Also with Erin Manning he edits an MIT Press book series also entitled "Technologies of Lived Abstraction."

Daina Taimina
Daina Taimina is Adjunct Associate Professor of Mathematics, Cornell University and a Docent at the University of Latvia. She is the author of the Latvian textbook Matematikas Vesture: History of Mathematics (1990), co-author (with D. W. Henderson) of Differential Geometry: A Geometric Introduction (1998) and Experiencing Geometry: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean with History (2005). Her research areas include geometry, theoretical computer science, history of mathematics, mathematics education, mathematics and art. Since 2005 she has participated in 20 art exhibits with her crocheted models of hyperbolic plane and geometric manifolds and led numerous workshops as well as given public lectures on connections between mathematics and art. The work is documented in her most recent publication Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes(2009). In Riga, she has contributed to the exhibition on The Latvian Reef Project initiated by Tija Viksna, a fiber artist and owner of Gallery Consentio.
Personal website: www.math.cornell.edu/~dtaimina
Latvian Reef Project: www.theiff.org/reef/latvian.html

Joanna Zylinska
Joanna Zylinska is a cultural theorist writing on new technologies and new media, ethics and art. She is a Reader in New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of three books - Bioethics in the Age of New Media (MIT Press, 2009), The Ethics of Cultural Studies (Continuum, 2005) and On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime (Manchester University Press, 2001) - she is also the editor of The Cyborg Experiments: the Extensions of the Body in the Media Age, a collection of essays on the work of performance artists Stelarc and Orlan (Continuum, 2002) and co-editor of Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). Zylinska is currently writing a new book on the idea of mediation, Life after New Media (with Sarah Kember) for the MIT Press. She is one of the Editors of Culture Machine, an international open-access journal of culture and theory. Zylinska combines her philosophical writings with photographic art practice. www.joannazylinska.net

ORGANIZER

Programme Chair

Manuela Rossini
Manuela Rossini holds an MA in English and Spanish Philology (U of Basel), a second MA in Critical and Cultural Theory (U of Cardiff), and a PhD in English from the U of Basel where she worked as a lecturer in the English Department and research coordinator in Gender Studies before a postdoc scholarship took her to the Netherlands. She is now a Project Manager at the td-net for Transdisciplinary Research of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and coordinates the Graduate School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the U of Berne. In 2006, she hosted the 4th European Meeting of the SLSA in Amsterdam. Initiator and co-founder of the sister organization of the SLSA in Europe, she now acts as a board member of SLSAeu and co-edits, together with Yves Abrioux, the Rodopi book series Experimental Practices. She also sits on the editorial board of the Rodopi book series Critical Posthumanisms. Her recent publications are From House to Home: Family Matters in Early Modern English Drama and Culture (2009) and, together with Tom Tyler, Animal Encounters (2009). Her current book project deals with configurations of the post/human in literary, philosophical and scientific writings.

Site Chair: Anda Klavina

Assistant and content management: Stefanie Boese

Webdesign: Carl Murphy

STREAM ORGANIZERS

Joseph Tabbi (Textuality and Materiality)
Joseph Tabbi is the author of two books of literary criticism, Cognitive Fictions (Minnesota, 2002) and Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk (Cornell, 1995). He edits ebr (www.electronicbookreview.com) and hosted the 2005 Chicago meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. As President of the Electronic Literature Organization and in collaboration with the United States Library of Congress, he has set up a peer-to-peer network of emerging scholars who are currently gathering born digital works of literature for inclusion in a developing archive (http://eliterature.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page).

Maria Damon (Textuality and Materiality)
Maria Damon is Professor of English at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry, Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader (co-edited with Ira Livingston), Bagel Shop Jazz: Selected Essays for a Post-literary 'America' (forthcoming). She has also published three books of poetry: Literature Nation (with mIEKAL aND), pleasureTEXTpossession (with mIEKAL aND), and Eros/ion (with mIEKAL aND). Her research areas include: poetry and poetics, cultural studies, text and textile, and ethnic studies.
http://english.cla.umn.edu/faculty/damon/
http://www.joglars.org/multidex.html
http://www.spidertangle.net/the_book/damon.html

Jānis Taurens (Architextures)
Jānis Taurens, Dr. Phil., Professor at the Art Academy of Latvia, member of the board of The Center for the Cognitive Sciences and Semantics (University of Latvia). Jānis Taurens researches contemporary Latvian art for publications within the series of Studija Library of which two have been already published: Gints Gabrāns (Riga: Neputns, 2008) and Famous Five (Riga: Neputns, 2009). He has been scientific editor of the Latvian translations of Wolfgang Welsch's Grenzgänge der Ästhetik (Riga: LMC, 2005) and Robert Smithson's The Collected Writings (Riga: LMA VKN, Biennāle-2005, 2009). Jānis Taurens has translated works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, including Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung, publication with comments and an afterword (Riga, Liepnieks & Rītups, 2006). Since 2006 until 2008 he has participated in the territory development planning for Latvian towns Pāvilosta and Sigulda (at the Ltd. Metrum). Major research areas and interests: philosophy of language (especially of Ludwig Wittgenstein); semantic interpretation of architecture; Minimalism and Conceptualism, contemporary art.

Vera Bühlmann (Architextures)
Vera Bühlmann is a researcher in media theory and philosophy at the Chair for Computer-Aided Architectural Design at the ETH Zurich since March 2008. She has recently completed her PhD in media philosophy, at the Institute for Media Sciences i/f/m, University of Basel, supervised by Prof. Georg Christoph Tholen (Basel) and Prof. Ludger Hovestadt (Zurich). Her thesis entitled inhabiting media. Annäherungen an Herkünfte und Topoi medialer Architektonik was part of the SNF Pro Doc Aesthetics of Intermediality. Play-Ritual-Performance. The two core concepts she develops in her thesis are that of a philosophical notion of the differential as a medial operator, as well as the therewith related programmatics of what she calls "Applied Virtuality". She has originally studied English Language and Literature, Philosophy and Media Sciences at the University of Zurich, where she completed her MA in 2002. Since 2005 she has been a lecturer and diploma coach at different Academies of Art and Design in Switzerland (e.g. HGK Lucerne, HdK Berne, HyperWerk FHNW). Between 2003 and 2007 she has been working as a research associate at the Academy of Art and Design in Basel, where she has co-edited three books and co-curated several events and symposia on design research as well as on scenography. In 2006 she has received the Edward Bruns Essay Prize by the SLSA for her essay "intelligent skin-real virtual".

Jens Hauser (Biopalimpsests)
Jens Hauser M.A. is a Research Associate at the Institute for Media Studies at Ruhr University Bochum where he teaches intermediality and media arts. His research is centrally focusing on the artistic use of biotechnologies. Hauser is also a faculty member of the Department for Image Science at Donau University Krems, and has been a guest lecturer at universities and art academies internationally. In 2005 Hauser received the Fund for Arts Research Award from the American Center Foundation. As a curator, Hauser has organized numerous interdisciplinary conferences in the field of art, science and philosophy, as well as exhibitions such as L'Art Biotech (Nantes, 2003), Still, Living (Perth, 2007); and, as part of the European Capital of Culture programmes, sk-interfaces (Liverpool, 2008/ Luxembourg, 2009), and the Article Biennale (Stavanger, 2008). As a cultural journalist and video maker Hauser has concentrated on the interactions between art and technology since 1992; he is founding collaborator of the European cultural television channel ARTE and has also directed numerous creative radio pieces, sound environments and videos. Among his recent publications are: sk-Interfaces. Exploding Borders - Creating Membranes in Art, Technology and Society. Liverpool University Press (2008) and L'art biotech'. Editions Filigranes.(2003) / Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice Bologna (2007).

Monika Bakke (Biopalimpsests)
Monika Bakke is an art critic and an assistant professor of aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She writes on contemporary art and aesthetics with a particular interest in posthumanist, gender and cross-cultural perspectives. She is the author of Open Body (2000, in Polish), Critical Posthumanism: Art, Aesthetics and Non-Human Life (2010, in Polish), co-autor of Pleroma: Art in search of fullness (1998) and the editor of Australian Aboriginal Aesthetics (2004, in Polish), Going Aerial: Air, Art, Architecture (2006). Since 2001 she has worked as editor of the Polish cultural magazine Czas Kultury.

Joanna Zylinska (Tissue Cultures)
Dr Joanna Zylinska is a Reader in New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of three books: Bioethics in the Age of New Media (MIT Press, 2009), The Ethics of Cultural Studies (Continuum, 2005) and On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime (Manchester University Press, 2001). She is also the editor of The Cyborg Experiments: the Extensions of the Body in the Media Age (Continuum, 2002) and co-editor of Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). Zylinska is currently working on a new book on the idea of mediation, Life after New Media (with Sarah Kember). She is Reviews Editor for Culture Machine, an international open-access journal of cultural studies and cultural theory. Zylinska also combines her philosophical writings with photographic art practice, which brings together old and new photographic techniques to creatively remediate the history of photography as well as its yet uncertain future.
Website: http://www.joannazylinska.net

Rasa Šmite (Networks and Sustainability)
Rasa Šmite is a new media artist and researcher, initiator and founder of the E-LAB (1996) and RIXC (2000), and organiser of annual "Art+Communication" festival in Riga, Latvia (since 1996). Since 1997 she is interested in artistic explorations of "acoustic space": together with Raitis Smits, she has initiated and founded the following projects: net.radio OZONE (since 1996), XCHANGE network (that received Award of Destinction at PRIX Ars Electronica in 1998) and "Acoustic Space Lab" project - symposium in the Irbene Radiotelescope (2001) and DVD (2002). In collaboration with r a d i o q u a l i a, Clausthome and VIRAC they have developed the live-installation and streaming project "Solar Radio Station" (Dortmund, 2006-2007); in collaboration with Spectral Investigations Collective - artistic research project "Spectral Ecology" (2007). She is also main editor of the "Acoustic Space" publication series (published since 1998 by E-Lab, RIXC and Liepaja University). Together with Armin Medosch and Raitis Smits she has curated large-scale international exhibition "Waves" (Arsenals, Riga, 2006; Dortmund, 2008). Together with Raitis Smits she also has curated exhibitons "Spectropia" (Riga Art space, 2007), and "Energy" (RIXC galery at Spikeri, Riga, 2009). Since 1996 she has organised and participated in numerous conferences, exhibitions, symposiums and festivals; lecturing in Latvian Arts Academy, Riga Stradins University, Liepaja University and other universities; she has been expert and member of various boards on new media culture. As the director of RIXC, she is currently involved in setting up a new structure - RIX-C Studio for Art and Sustainable Technologies in Spikeri (collaboration with the Interactive Institute / Sweden and Art Research Lab of Liepaja University), as well as in developing of an Art and Renewable Technology network in the Baltic/Nordic/EU region. Furehrmore, she is a PhD candidate (in sociology) at Riga Stradina University. She also works as a researcher at the MPLab, Art Research Lab of Liepaja Univeristy, where she is involved in setting up the New Media Art programme.

Armin Medosch (Networks and Sustainability)
Armin Medosch is a writer, artist and curator working in the field of media arts and network culture, based in London and Vienna. Recent projects include the exhibition Waves, which he initiated and co-curated, and which was held in May 2008 in Dortmund and August 2006 in Riga; the Ars Electronica theme conference "Goodbye Privacy" in 2007 and the symposium "Creative Cities", Vienna, March 2009, both created in collaboration with Ina Zwerger; the wireless public art project Hidden Histories / Street Radio realised together with Hivenetworks, Southampton, 2008; recent writing focuses on topics related to new media technologies and social change, and has appeared in publications such as the data browser readers 01, 02, Node.London Reader I/II, as well as on http://www.thenextlayer.org, a shared platform for collaborative research initiated by Medosch. He is currently doing a practice based PhD in Arts and Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London.