The initial list of confirmed participants includes a wide range of leading new media practitioners from throughout the Asia Pacific. Additional presenters from both Aotearoa and overseas are currently under negotiation.
Raqs (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) is a collective of media practitioners that works in new media & digital art practice, documentary filmmaking, photography, media theory & research, writing, criticism and curation. Their work has been exhibited in the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2003), Documenta 11, the Walker Art Center and the Taipei Biennial 2004/5. Their work (with the Sarai Media Lab) won the UNESCO Digital Arts Prize in 2004. Raqs Media Collective is the co-initiator of Sarai: The New Media Initiative, (http://www.sarai.net) a renowned programme of interdisciplinary research and practice on media, city space and urban culture at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. At Sarai, they work on projects interpreting the city and urban experience; make cross-media works; collaborate on the development of software; design and conduct workshops; administer discussion lists; edit publications; write, research and co-ordinate several research projects and public activities of Sarai.
Cheryl l'hirondelle (aka Cheryl L'hirondelle Waynohtew, Cheryl Koprek) is an alberta born but currently a vancouver based, halfbreed (metis/cree-non status/treaty, french, german, polish) multi/interdisciplinary artist. Since the early 80's she has created, performed, collaborated and presented work in a variety of artistic disciplines: performance art, music (voice, percussion), theatre (actor/writer), performance poetry, storytelling, video and new media. Since the early 90's she has also worked as an arts programmer, cultural strategist/activist, arts consultant and producer independently and within the national artist-run network, first nations bands and tribal councils, and government agencies (provincial & federal). She is currently developing performative physical endurance interventions and producing interactive net.art projects (http://www.ndnnrkey.net), still performs with her singing duo nikamok and is teaching first nations net.art and digital storytelling at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She was recent guest editor of the new media magazine HorizonZero on a special issue on aboriginal storytelling in new media.
Fatima Lasay is an artist, independent curator, and educator of digital media. Her work looks into communalism, sovereignty and autonomy in the practice and theory of technology-based arts, and cultural [re]definitions of technologies within the context of development and neocolonialism. She has presented her work in Denmark, India, the Netherlands, Singapore and Taiwan, and has conducted workshops and worked with artists in Burma, Switzerland and the Philippines.
Fatima obtained her degrees in Industrial Design (1991) and Master of Fine Arts (2002) from the University of the Philippines (UP) where she also organized the first digital media festivals (2000-2003). She served as lecturer (1996-2000) and assistant professor (2000-2004) at the UP College of Fine Arts. Fatima will be participating in a pilot international masters program for the arts under a bursary at the Ecole Cantonale d'Art du Valais (ECAV) in Sierre, Switzerland. She joined the Leonardo Electronic Almanac in 2000 and currently serves as member of its International Advisory Board. Fatima is also on the Steering Committee of the ISEA2006 Pacific Rim New Media Summit (PRNMS) and chairs its Working Group on Education.
Jenny Fraser was born in Far North Queensland and her family hails from the Yugambeh and Munuljahli of the Bundjalung Nation in South East Queensland and the Clans Fraser and McNamara on her other side. Because of the diverse creative mediums Jenny uses much of her work defies categorisation. More recently her work takes iconic and everyday symbols of Australian life and places them into a context that questions the values they represent. With a laconic sense of humour she picks away at the fabric of our society, exposing contradictions, absurdities, and denial. Jenny founded and curates cyberTribe, an Indigenous online Gallery that aims to encourage the production and exhibition of Indigenous Art with a focus on the digital.
Her commitment to spreading the word about new media arts and its potential as an expressive medium for Indigenous artists is reflected in the development of the website Blackout, that showcases and promotes the work of participants to the world. Jenny's work on this site has seen it evolve into an important resource for people interested in Indigenous new media practitioners in Australia.
Amanda McDonald Crowley has recently been appointed as the Executive Director of Eyebeam Atelier in New York http://www.eyebeam.org. She is a cultural worker, curator and writer who specialises in creating new media and contemporary art events and programmes that encourage cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and exchange. Amanda was executive producer for ISEA2004, the International Symposium for Electronic Arts 2004, held in Tallinn and Helsinki and on a cruiser ferry in the Baltic sea. She was Associate Director, Adelaide Festival 2002 and in this position was also Chair of the working group that curated the exhibition and symposium 'conVerge: where art and science meet'. From 1995 to 2000 she was Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) where she made significant links with science and industry by developing a range of residencies for artists in settings such as science organisations, contemporary art spaces and virtual residencies online. She also began the process of establishing networks throughout the Asian region in order to foster regional collaborations and exchanges and developed a range of national (and in 2000 international) masterclasses for new media artists and curators.
Creative Combat is a Maori Aboriginal collaboration that harnesses creative energies to make positive change in indigenous communities. Creative Combat focuses on building synergies between indigenous, activist and conscious music communities through music and new media.
"He taanoa tapu te pokanoa mana. E kore te rangatira e aahei ki toona tuutuatanga." (I refuse to believe that a free man would accept despotism)
Chaz is a longterm member of the politically active group, Te Mana Motuhake oo Tuuhoe. This group is steadfast in its attitude to keep Tuuhoe philosophy vibrant and vigorous for generations to come. Bearing witness to all the examples of story telling from local artists with international artists sets the scene, as we all foster new connections. This support will help our realization of Tino Rangatiratanga, Mana Motuhake, our freedom.
Charles Koroneho is an artist working in the fields of culture, performance, visual arts and education. As the director of Te Toki Haruru, a platform created for the development of interculturalism, performance art and cultural consultancy; he has practiced as a cultural artist exploring the collision between Maori cosmologies, New Zealand society and global cultures. He is currently freelancing, working as a performance artist with the theatre collective MAU, and cultural collaborator for Hitchens Koroneho & Associates; on the conceptualisation and designing of public art projects.
Rachael Rakena has lectured for the past eight years in Digital and Moving Image and Art Theory. She is currently lecturing in the Maori Visual Arts program at Massey University. Rachael's practice includes still imagery, performance, video and installation, considering ideas of iwi identity, digital space, space between, and water space, contributing to indigenous strategies towards tino rangatiratanga. Her exhibition Rerehiko is currently showing at The Dowse, Lower Hutt.
Albert L Refiti, born and brought up in Samoa, is an architectural designer, historian and theorist; currently lecturing at the Auckland University of Technology School of Art and Design. He has worked in architecture in Auckland and London, and written extensively on indigenous knowledge and identity formation in architecture and art of the Asia Pacific region. His current research explores the rethinking of Pacific concepts in light of temporal technologies and digital/virtual design.
Lisa Reihana is a Maori artist who has played a leading role in the development of film and multimedia art in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her work demonstrates a keen interest to communicate complex ideas about indigenous identity and bi-cultural living, and a desire to address and engage with contemporary experience through diverse media. Her installations are collages drawn from eclectic sources. Her examination of cultural histories uses photography; sculpture and time-based arts.