Panel Discussion
RECIPROCITY: regenerative futures through art + science + technology collaborations.
Leading into the future of the untold and yet to be made.
We are delighted to announce that the Australian Network for Art & Technology [ANAT], will contribute to our conference with a panel session on future making and how experimental practice, research and interdisciplinary collaborations meld together to make new systems of thought, doing and being with a special focus on accessibility.
https://www.anat.org.au/
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/australian-network-for-art-and-technology
We acknowledge that humanity and our planet Earth is amid a transformative era, facing some of the greatest ecological, social, cultural, economical and technical challenges in human history.
As a species, the stories we bring to life in this decade will contribute to living beings and systems, flourishing or failing – including humans. ANAT plays a critical role in this. We are being invited to consider whose stories we bring life to and in what ways as well as how we amplify their impact. We are the confluence of three interconnected and interrelated ecosystems; arts, science and technology, that are critical in shaping this right of passage and unique opportunities to shape the futures.
ANAT has a long tradition of cultivating artistic excellence by bringing together artists with science and technology to create experimental artwork, but making new ideas visible is not enough. Our vision is for artists to contribute to cultivating the conditions for ecological, cultural, social and economic flourishing for all living beings, through the making and sharing of some of Australia’s most important stories. Building on our existing programs, capability, and our core value of reciprocity, over the next five years ANAT will identify and develop our role in cultural diplomacy internationally, importantly across the Indo Pacific and Southeast Asian regions.
We recognise that we need to amplify the unheard and vulnerable (human and beyond human), transcend traditional practices to communicate stories effectively and cultivate relationships that enable us to endure. While there are many future unknowns, our range of actions and measures provide us a map to follow. In our quest as generative industry leaders – to do more good than harm, we will sense deeply into emergent and possible pasts, presents and futures. We will centre the unheard and the vulnerable in honour of revolutionary love, compassion and care. We will reside in the nexus of differences and find ways to communicate more effectively for deeper, broader and greater impact.
Panel Chair – Melissa DeLaney
ANAT CEO, Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT School of Art (2024-2027)
Melissa’s work dwells in the intersections of education and government, wellness, creative industries, technology and science, recreation, and arts and cultural development in work she sees as social sculpture. A vital focus of the work and practice is interdisciplinary partnerships and collaboration.
Melissa continues building an international network, mostly interested in participatory forms – this includes residencies, programs and events, strategy, and facilitating spaces for others to connect and be creative, active and social.
In 2024 Melissa was made an Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT School of Art (2024-2027).
Melissa was a Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop Fellowship recipient as part of the Asialink Leaders Program, 2021/22 and is a current peer with Creative Australia (2021-2024).
In addition to holding a Masters in Creative Industries (University of Newcastle, 2024), Melissa is also certified in mindfulness meditation teaching, Yin Yoga teacher training, is a trained raw food chef and holds a graduate degree in Wellness (Health Science) through RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia), fields she brings into a holistic approach to work and leadership and fostering healthy organisations.
Bruno Azevedo is Assistant researcher at Algoritmi Research Center – engageLab which is an interdisciplinary laboratory at the intersection of art, science, and technology at the University of Minho – Portugal. In 2023 He won a best paper award and was elected as an European Alliance For Innovation (EAI) Distinguished Member.
He worked as Postdoc researcher at the Digital Humanities Group of the Center for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minho under the project PTDC / LLT-LIG / 31113/2017, where he worked on information visualization, user interface and user experience design. He also worked as user experience, user interface design and information visualization researcher in a multidisciplinary project, namely 6.849,32 New Scientific Journal Articles Everyday: Visualize or Perish! (POCI-01-0145- FEDER-28284). We also worked as a Post-Doc researcher in the INNOVATIVE CAR HMI a partnership between the University of Minho and Bosch, in the project line P6.8.9 Cockpit Of The Future: HMI Concepts And Functions, in Intelligent adaptive interfaces, machine learning, usability, and user experience.
He also teaches Information Visualization and Data Analysis as an invited assistant professor in the Digital Humanities Master’s Degree Program of the Institute of Arts and Humanities, Digital Fabrication and 3D Modeling and Animation in the Visual Arts Bachelor of the School of Architecture, Art and Design of the University of Minho.
His current research focus merges aesthetic information visualization, Zazen meditation, neuroscience, and computational immersive environments.
Speaker – Eirini (Irene) Mavrommati
Irene is a Professor at the Hellenic Open University, School of Applied Arts (2009-) and has been an interaction design researcher / Future Emerging Technologies research project coordinator with CTI (2000-2009), with roles in concept creation, project acquisition, design direction, and project management. She has been with Philips Design, the Netherlands, (1995-2000) as a senior interaction designer/project manager in Ambient Intelligence (AmI), Car Navigation, and Interactive TV Systems, among others. She has extensive experience in design and research, focusing in Ambient Computing systems’ interaction, and has led several EU FET research projects. Irene holds a PhD in Interaction Design in Ubiquitous Computing Environments, (investigating aspects of End User Development in AmI environments, from the Dept. of Products and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean), an MA (RCA) in Interactive Multimedia, and MA and BA in Graphic Communication Design and an Open and Distance Learning qualification. She participates in art exhibitions with interactive installations, as well as technology exhibitions with research demo prototypes; she has authored several book chapters and research articles with a focus in interaction within ambient computing environments.
Speaker – Maria Roussou
Associate Professor in Interactive Systems, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Maria Roussou is Assistant Professor in Interactive Systems (Human Computer Interaction, Virtual Reality, Videogames) at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of London (UCL), a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Electronic Visualization from the School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, a Masters of Science (M.Sc) in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the same university, and an undergraduate degree in Applied Informatics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. In 2003 she founded and co-directed (until 2016) “makebelieve”, a consulting company designing digital experiences for museums. Previously, she established (in 1998) and directed (until 2003) the Virtual Reality Department at the Foundation of the Hellenic World. For most of the nineties (1993-1997), during her extensive work with the CAVE® at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory in Chicago, she focused on the design, application, and evaluation of virtual and digital media environments for education and the representation of cultural information.
Hao Li is CEO and co-founder of Pinscreen, a startup that builds cutting edge AI-driven virtual avatar technologies, as well as associate professor at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). He was previously a Distinguished Fellow of the Computer Vision Group at UC Berkeley and Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, where he was also director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Li works at the intersection between computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning, with focus on virtual humans, reality capture, and AI synthesis. With the rapid advancement of AI-driven content creation technologies, he is committed to prioritizing our safety and wellbeing by developing tools to prevent new forms of cyberthreats such as deepfakes used for disinformation campaigns or harassment. Li was also a visiting professor at Weta Digital, a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm, and a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia and Princeton universities. His startup, Pinscreen, was recipient of the Epic Megagrants in 2021, and in 2022, Li was featured in the first season of Amazon’s documentary re:MARS Luminaries.
Elena Partesotti is a Postdoctoral Researcher Interdisciplinary Nucleus for Sound Studies (NICS) and the Brazilian Institute for Neuroscience (BRAINN), Unicamp. With a background in musicology, music therapy, cognitive science, neurotechnology, and HCI, she investigates the role of Extended Digital Musical Instruments for rehab with a creative approach. She serves as Associate Editor for International Journal of Art Therapy and as Guest Editor for the Special Issue on Art Technologies in Music Therapy and rehabilitation for the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. Dr. Partesotti has served as General Chair for ArtsIT 202.
Speaker – Olívia Lapenta
Olivia Morgan Lapenta is a researcher at the Psychological Neuroscience Lab within the Psychology Research Center at Universidade do Minho. She specializes in human cognitive neuroscience, combining physiological and behavioral assessments. Olivia has worked on several topics, including action observation and imagery, the McGurk effect, food craving, the rubber-hand illusion, social pain, attention and mind-wandering processes, and sensorimotor entrainment. Currently, she is focused on the following lines of research: 1. The effects of meditation on relaxation and electroencephalographic (EEG) and heart rate patterns. 2. Food perception and interventions for populations with eating disorders or altered taste perception. 3. Integrative approaches to multisensory integration, emotion perception, and motor performance through neuromodulation
Olivia has expertise in neuromodulatory techniques (tDCS and TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG), as well as experience with eye-tracking and electromyography (EMG) techniques applied to cognitive neuroscience investigations
