GRADUATE STUDENTS


Annabel Castro	Annabel Castro learned to talk in Mexico City's Iztpalapa County and later on completed a BA in Graphic Design and a MSc in Art and Technology. A current PhD student at DXARTS, she works on her own and in collaborative projects with objects, photographs, internet, video, text and robotics. As arts academic advisor of the Latin-American Institute of Educational Communication she developed and ran Mexico's first project in programming applied to visual arts for secondary school students. She also taught Physical Computing at the Architecture Department of the Centro University and digital media at the Academic Computing Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her artwork has been shown at venues such as Transmediale 08 in Berlin, Art Tech Media 06 in Spain and the International Art Biennial SIART in Bolivia where she recently received their "La Paz" award.

Eunsu Kang Extended Profile	Eunsu Kang is an international media artist from Korea. She has been invited to more than sixty exhibitions and film festivals around the world. She was awarded her first and second solo exhibitions for her video installations. Her third solo exhibition was held on cellular phones with wireless internet connections. She is also a winner of the Korean National Fund for Emerging Artists in 2005, the Insa Web/Mobile Art Project Award in 2003 and the Korean National Juried Project for 2000: the Year of New Arts. Kang received her MA in Media Arts and Technology from the MAT program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her MFA and BFA from the Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. She is currently a PhD student at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media in the University of Washington. Her current research interests are the use of non-verbal languages as a new forms of communication and interactive video installations representing questions, but not necessarily pursuing answers. Recently she presented an international telematic project between Seattle (USA) and Seoul (Korea) that uses video and sound interaction by participants' shape and motion as a communication interface.

Max Keene Extended Profile	Max Keene - From a childhood of compulsively taking things apart and putting them back together, Max has developed a strong interest in understanding how and why things work as well as an ability to visualize in three dimensions. Early careers included working as a CAD draftsman for various architecture firms and then creating photorealistic images of architecture as a 3D artist for Ron Lloyd associates, where he received a regional Emmy award for special video effects. In 2002 he received his BFA from Cornish College of the Arts and shifted his focus from 3D visualization to a blending of interactive media and sculpture. This proved to be a perfect balance between exploring the inner workings of complicated systems and manipulating three-dimensional space. For the last half decade, he has been creating and showing interactive artwork as well as developing custom tools and techniques for experimental media. In 2005 Max founded Interactive Arts, Inc., which designs and builds both interactive public art and custom control equipment for media artists such as Trimpin, Gary Hill, Ben Rubin, and many others.

Joel Kollin Extended Profile	Joel Kollin is a PhD student at the University of Washington's Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS) program, where he is developing an artistic agenda which utilizes immersion and perception at the extremes of sensory awareness to examine the interplay between identity, memory, surveillance, and empathy in an increasingly dissociative, media-centric world. His recent interests include fully immersive installations, environmental sound, synthaesthesia, and systems art where humans form a critical part in a network of complex emergent behavior. Prior to arriving at DXARTS Mr Kollin worked primarily in the field of display technology for 17 years. He holds several key patents on personal, holographic, and autostereoscopic displays as well as many derivative patents.

Allison Kudla Extended Profile	Allison Kudla is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington's Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS). She holds a BFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, 2002. She is interested in using technology in her art to gain greater perspectives on the system in which we exist. She hopes for her art to inspire, develop and question the technology it uses, with the pursuit of utilizing the discipline of Art to create meaningful and present experiences that allow us to understand our selves and our habitats in ways no other forms of human inquiry and development could. In her earlier work, she focused on the variation of interiors by producing real-time video/audio renderings using data sensed within the given space. Her most recent work uses data sensed from natural systems to create hybrid bio-mechanical systems.

Philomène Longpré	Philomène Longpré is a multimedia artist who is engaged in exploring the intricate interactions between the physical and virtual world. Since 1999, her research has focused on the development of interactive video systems. Her artwork juxtaposes responsive membranes, virtual characters, digital interfaces and abstract sounds to elicit new communication between visitors and their environments. She received her MFA in Art and Technology at The School of Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Longpré's systems have been exhibited internationally in Digial Art Festivals such as FILE Brazil, BUDi South Korea, LOOPTOPIA United States, NATURALMENTE Italy, NEXUS Thailand and DIGIFEST, FICFA, PROMO Canada. She has received numerous honours of distinction including the Pinsky Medal, the Hexagram Prize of Excellence, the Judith Hamel New Media Award and the Stanley Mills prize. She also took part in a one-year student exchange program at the University of New Mexico, participated in a six-month granted art project in South Asia and took part in the AIR residency program at the Hong Kong Art School.

Stelios Manousakis	Stelios Manousakis (Greece, 1980) is a composer, performer, sound designer and researcher. In these capacities he strives to develop a new musical language merging algorithmic finesse with the expressivity of improvisation. He composes mostly electronic, electroacoustic and electro-instrumental music using a software environment of his design and is currently interested in applying biology-inspired Artificial Life models for musical structure generation. One of the products of this work, his tape piece "Do Digital Monkeys Inhabit Virtual Trees?", was awarded an honorable mention at the International Gaudeamus Composition Competition 2007. Besides his solo work, he is co-founder of the ensembles Computer Aided Breathing, SelectInput and Breakcore Tapdance Collective and collaborates frequently with the multimedia noise group Feedback Society and soprano Stephanie Pan. Stelios grew up in Chania, Crete, where he studied accordion, piano and music theory; he later moved to Athens to study at the National University of Athens. After receiving a BA in Linguistics and graduating with honors from the conservatory in Advanced Music Theory as a student of Giorgos Fitsioris, he moved to the Netherlands, joining the Institute of Sonology at The Royal Conservatory, The Hague. There he studied with Paul Berg, Konrad Boehmer, Joel Ryan and Kees Tazelaar, among others, graduating with a Master's Degree in Sonology (thesis subject: Musical L-systems). He is currently a graduate student at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) in the University of Washington. www.modularbrains.net

William "Pete" Moss	William "Pete" Moss became interested in music in highschool, when it became obvious that he would never become an astronaut. For several years, he worked on computers and composed music at different times, until that fateful day when he realized that computers could be used for music. Since then, he hasnt looked back. Pete has won a few awards for his music, and has had it played in several parts of the world, including the USA. He received a BM from Texas Christian University where he studied with Blaise Ferrandino and Gerry Gabel. He then went to the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Russell Pinkston and earned his MM. Now he is working towards his DMA at the University of Washington with Richard Karpen and Juan Pampin. Petes hobbies include motorcycling and video games, but not video games about motorcycling.

Hiroki Nishino Extended Profile	Hiroki Nishino (b.1973) is currently a Ph.D student and a reasearch assistant at DXArts. Born in suburban area of Tokyo/Japan, like all the other kids of the time, he was obssesed with 8-bit computers in his childhood. After another obsession with rock music, he began to study Gagaku (Japanese traditional court music), as a player of Ryuteki flute with Ms. Naoko MIYAMARU and Master Sukeyasu SHIBA. While working as a software engineer in Tokyo, he also received an MA in Media and Governance at Keio Univ for computer music. After comsuming himself in RF-ID related projects in a small venture company, his interest in such emerging new medias lead him to seek for possiblities of artistic/creative uses of them. Current his interests includes live computer music/rf-id/etc.

Noel Paul Extended Profile	Noel Paul is a doctoral candidate at DXARTS. As an undergrad he studied computer music with Richard Karpen and Juan Pampin. As a grad he studied experimental art with Shawn Brixey. His music compositions and short films have been played in various countries and won the odd award here and there. As a teacher he has designed new curriculum, most recently a "UW Exploration Seminar" taught in Sicily and Tunisia.

Maja Petrić	Maja Petrić grew up in Croatia during the war and learned how to repair broken things and see fragmented landscapes as whole. Being around patched-up things felt much better than being surrounded by chaos and disorder in an environment of helplessness. It became his preoccupation to reconstruct the traumatized view by use of arts. Later on, Maja became interested in use of creative technologies to design the atmosphere of the sublime. The completion of his master's thesis at the New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and the experiences gained on a variety of projects posed even more questions about the untapped subject of the sublime in our contemporary time and space. With the continuous research he attempts to reveal piece of mystery about it, and propose projects that can bring the mysterious experiences into our everyday lives.

Heather Raikes Extended Profile	Heather Raikes is a media/performance artist and PhD student at DXARTS. She began her formal exploration of art/technology convergence zones performing as a professional dancer with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company while earning an MPS from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. She has been creating physical media and technologically-facilitated evolutions and derivations of performance forms ever since. Current artistic/research interests include hyper-dimensional new media language systems, telematic performance, physical media experience design, and technoetic embodiment. A Nebraska farmer's daughter, Heather enjoys breaking new ground. Her journey so far has included not only national and international performances and exhibitions, but also positions such as Innovation Coordinator for UC San Diego's Sixth College: Culture \| Art \| Technology; Research Associate with UCSD's Center for Research in Computing & the Arts; Temple University New Media Producer-In-Residence; establishing Director of Temple's New Media Performance Lab and New Media Interdisciplinary Concentration; and founding partner of Silicon Alley design collective Media Farm.

Tivon Rice Extended Profile	Tivon Rice (b. 1978) is a new media artist and current PhD student at the University of Washington's Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media. Tivon began his exploration of image and form at the University of Colorado, where he received a BFA in both Electronic Media and Sculpture (2000). He continued these investigations in the University of Washington's masters program in sculpture, during which time he began his studies in experimental video with Shawn Brixey. Since earning his MFA in 2006 Tivon has received numerous local and national awards including the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant and the Artist Trust Fellowship, and has exhibited extensively with solo shows throughout the northwest and group shows in New York and Miami. In 2007 he taught experimental video as a visiting artist at DXARTS and formally began his PhD studies. Tivon is currently exploring systematic image making and the communicative potential of light, form, and environment.

Karolina Sobecka Extended Profile	Karolina Sobecka works with interactivity, installations, video, animation, and other new and old media. Her art and design are daily attempts at making our world more beautiful and meaningful. Her artistic interest is strongly stimulated by the advances in science and technology, which shape our understanding of ourselves and our world. Her recent interests include examining the ways of creating meaning and creating complex dynamics between one's actions and perceptions. Karolina was born in Warsaw, Poland, got her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA in Experimental Animation and Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been shown at festivals and galleries around the world, most recently at ISEA2006, Trampoline Festival, Nottingham, UK, and New Forms Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hugo Solis Extended Profile	Hugo Solis (1976, México City) is currently a Ph.D student at DXARTS. His main interests are musical structure of improvised music, human computer musical interaction, and audiovisual systems. Currently he works on the development of sonic and visual extensions for acoustic pianos and also plays with the Juum duet. He holds a DEA of Computer Sciences and Digital Communication from the Pompeu Fabra Univeristy where he was member of the Music Technology Group. At UPF, he founded the ensAmble Crumble and he developed computational analysis of its music. He also got a Masters degree in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory at the Opera of the Future group where he developed IMPI an audiovisual system for improvisatory music. He also contributed to the Toy Symphony project. As an undergrad, he studied piano, composition and music technology at the Escuela Nacional de Música of the UNAM in Mexico City. He also studied computer music with Nick Didkovsky at NYU. His interests in technology and improvisatory music inspired him to found the NICROM Trio, an interdisciplinary ensemble of electro-acoustic improvisatory music with action painting. Since then, he has played piano and electronics and has collaborated in many interdisciplinary projects in conjunction with dancers, painters, film-makers and radio-artists. In recent years, Hugo has also created several multimedia works and installations. He has received grants from the FONCA, the PAEE-FONCA, the UNAM and TELMEX.

Meghan Trainor	Meghan Trainor is an artist and doctoral student at the University of Washington's Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS). Her work explores the use of emerging and existing technologies and materials to help examine the aesthetics of near future environments, particularly where the physical and the digital world overlap. She is interested in the methods by which new technologies become emotionally important to us, and eventually form part of our nostalgic sense of history, or conversely, components of a dystopian landscape. Her themes and interests include the anthropomorphic machines, bionic humans, stories of time travel, alternate universes and other creative devices that allow us to both invent and digest advancing technology. She is best known for her interactive and performance art created in part with RFID; a body of work that augments tactile interaction with audio outputs. Currently she is interested in examining the impact of brainwave controllers and 3D printers on our ability to create and transmit objects. Some of her previous adventures include a media internship at Honeybee Robotics during their participation in the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover Mission, a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space and a presentation at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona's Targeted Publics: Arts and Technologies of the Security City Symposium. She holds a Master's from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.

Ewa Trebacz Extended Profile	Ewa Trebacz (pronounced Eva Trembatch, b.1973, Krakow, Poland) is currently a doctoral candidate at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), where she has studied computer music with Richard Karpen and Juan Pampin, and experimental video with Shawn Brixey. Ewa holds Masters" degrees from the Academy of Music (1999, composition, B.Schaeffer) and the Academy of Economics (2000, computer science) in Krakow, Poland. She has been collaborating with animation artists from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts since 1998, creating music and sound design for short films, with the most recent project a 35-mm clay animation titled Sekwens, and directed by Robert Sowa, 2007. Her works have been performed, recorded and broadcast internationally, including Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the USA. She has received commissions from music festivals and performers specializing in contemporary music (2003 - Chordochromies for harpsichord and computer-realized sound, written for a Polish-Dutch harpshichordist Goska Isphording; 2005 - Ephemerae commissioned by the Klangspuren Festival in Austria, written for the Windkraft Ensemble; 2007 - the 50th International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn: a work involving a 3-dimentional sound system and a spatially distributed symphony orchestra, premiered in September 2007, under the direction of Arturo Tamayo). Her current research is oriented towards experimental media, focusing on spatial aspects of the experience of a work of art, with a special focus on the two immersive techniques: ambisonics and stereoscopy. Her dissertation project is based on the idea of the separation and manipulation of spatial cues, both visual and sonic, in order to design a game of illusions, to create a continuum between the synthetic and live sources, and to challenge the borders of perceptual limitations.

Nicolas Varchausky Extended Profile	Nicolas Varchausky (Buenos Aires, 1973) lived for more than 30 years in his country of origin, Argentina. In fact that makes him and anybody in his position, a survivor. During his enlightening South American period, he was able to build a peripheral perspective towards art and its social and political context. He studied guitar and Electro Acoustic Music Composition at Universidad de Quilmes, joining the institution as a researcher and faculty member after obtaining his degree. He also taught the Sound Design class at Universidad de Buenos Aires. He composes both electronic and instrumental music, having also worked extensively for theatre and film productions. Since 1999 his work involves also sound art and site specific projects. His music and projects try to articulate the relations between sound, space, memory and spoken voice as a musical material. He is currently experiencing the deep differences of having moved from a country without law, to a country with endless rules and regulations. www.varchausky.com.ar

Annie Wan Extended Profile	Annie Wan - a young activist in audiovisual performance, interactive art and an innovator in interactive technologies. She achieved a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Media from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, in 2002. She has lived in Singapore, London, Brighton and Gothenburg (Sweden), earned a Master of Science in Art and Technology at Innovative Design, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden in 2005. Her works, including locative media, audiovisual performances and interactive installations, have been shown at the Mondal Museum (Sweden); Syndicate Potential (Strasbourg, France); Art+Communication Festival 2004 (Riga, Latvia); Piksel 2004; FLOSS in Motion, (Bergen, Norway); Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Conference 2004 (Singapore); and Oppositional Architecture (Berlin, Germany). She received travel and project grants from various organizations in Hong Kong, Sweden, and Norway, including the Nordic Fund and EU Culture Fund. Recently, she co-curated the locative media gallery for Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), participated in ZeroOne/ ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Arts) 2006 in San Jose and 10th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy as an invited artist.

Ryan Wolfe Extended Profile	Ryan Wolfe was born in Detroit City, but he has lived most of his sentient life in San Francisco. With a degree focusing on interactive design from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ryan has been creating and designing with technology for over a decade. As a Creative Director and interaction designer in the fashionable worlds of advertising and web development, he has solved interface design challenges for a long list of clients. Having helped to sell sufficient numbers of widgets to unequivocally prove that he is not a communist, he has now turned his attention to working with tangible computing technologies. His current artistic focus is on designing unique sculptural systems that are at once reminiscent of and completely separate from the natural systems upon which they are based, and that engender in the viewer a new awareness of the momentousness inherent in every moment. His current design focus is on exploring new ways to bring animacy and causal reciprocity to the functional objects we interact with on a daily basis.

Zack Bent	Zack Bent (b. 1975) is a MFA student in the Department of Art at the University of Washington studying Photography. His work is focused on the photograph's inherent ability to document and recall situations and his interest is in diagramming quiet and minimal moments that describe human dilemmas and mind-splitting dualities. He received a BARCH in Architecture, a BS in Environmental Design, and an MA in Photography from Ball State University in Indiana. www.zackbent.com