Lina Dib

PhD Student, Rice University
Anthropology, media studies and the social study of science

My research looks at how we build architectures for memory; structures in which to collect and organize knowledge and information about our past. Situated at the intersection of anthropology, media studies and the social study of science, my doctoral fieldwork, based in labs throughout the UK, concentrates on the research and development of prototypical recording devices, sensors, and personal archival technologies. In studying the production of these devices, and how interdisciplinary scientists convene around the engineering and implementation of new forms of memory and temporality, I examine emergent relationships between humans, and between humans and machines.Building on my collaboration with the Topological Media Lab in Montreal, I further my research into time, memory and affect in the forms of experimental video, sound and installation. Throughout, the design of recording devices is a question rather than an end, a means to elaborate on social, ontological and ethical issues.

Erik Conrad

PhD SIP Concordia
Theater, physical compuitng, media choreography

Conrad is an artist and PhD student at the Topological Media Lab (Concordia University) researching the relationship between the
phenomenal understanding of the body and the experience and understanding of space. His background is interdisciplinary, including a MS Information and Computer Science from University of California Irvine’s Arts, Computation and Engineering program, MS Information Design and Technology from Georgia Tech, and BA Visual and Performing Arts from University of Maryland Baltimore County. Conrad has presented internationally at SIGGRAPH and ISWC, and his most recent work, TactileSpace, has been exhibited at the Beall Center for Art and Technology in California.

Harry Smoak

PhD, Special Individualized Program, Fine Arts
web site
free/busy calendar
contact

Harry Smoak is a Montréal-based American artist, PhD candidate in Fine Arts Special Individualized Program (Supervisors: Chris Salter, Sha Xin Wei, and Erin Manning) at Concordia University, and senior research associate at the Hexagram Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies. His current interests revolve around the development of experimental sensor-based interactive media environments. Harry is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology having received his Masters in Human-Computer Interaction in 2004. He was the founding Research Coordinator for the Topological Media Lab at Hexagram-Concordia.

Jennifer Spiegel

philosophy, environmental activism, experimental performance

Jen is a PhD student at Goldsmith College, Centre for Cultural Studies.  She is interested in the relationships between theatre, philosophy and biopolitics, and is currently
researching the way public art/participatory performance interacts with changing concepts of ecology.  Recently she has been involved in devising performance pieces with a “Theatre and Philosophy” group, exploring themes of rhythm and ritual.  She is keen to continue exploring, both through discussions and practice-based research, with TML.

Elizaveta Solomonova

Individualized PhD
University of Montreal
Areas of study: neuroscience of sleep and dreaming, philosophy, media arts

Liza is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. at University of Montreal: thesis directors: Tore Nielsen (Psychiatry, University of Montreal, Sha Xin Wei (Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University), committee: Bettina Bergo (Philosophy, University of Montreal), Don Kuiken (Psychology, University of Alberta). Her work is a collaborative initiative between the Topological Media Lab and the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory, she is exploring the phenomenology of embodied subjective experiences, in dreams and during wake, focusing on kinesthetic sensations and body movement within the lived space.She has recently submitted her M.Sc. thesis in Psychology (University of Montreal) on memory sources and agency in dreams. She holds a B.A. from McGill Univerisity, with a double major in Art History and Psychology, and a minor in World Religions.

Flower Marie Lunn

MFA Fibres
Fibers based soft architecture, embeded circutry

Flower Marie Lunn is an emerging installation artist who focuses on
fibres-based soft architecture. She received her BFA from Concordia in
2006. She most enjoys the poetics of nature appearing in contemporary
spaces – a becoming-biological, becoming-molecular, becoming-planetary.

Magdalena Isabela Victoria Olszanowski

PhD, Concordia University
Communication Studies
website

Magdalena Olszanowski is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication Studies at Concordia University. She obtained her BA honours summa cum laude from the University of Toronto and an MA in Communication and Culture from York University. She has studied at the University of Amsterdam on full scholarship. A certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto school of Continuing Education also hangs on her mom’s wall.Born in Warsaw, Poland, she is a sujet-en-proces, existing within the contours of relations. Her work grounds itself in the multi-faceted topology of surveillance and process/movement. Magdalena’s research topics include the body as an ‘open system’ prepared for ‘abstract sex’, granular synthesis, process philosophy’s potential in re-framing mapping practices, melancholia, emerging media and the liminal spaces of the ‘not yet’ in immersive environments.

By the by, she identifies as an arts-based researcher with lax hygiene and no social graces.

Doug Van Nort

Ph.D. Music Technology
McGill
Personal Website

Doug Van Nort is a sound artist and researcher currently working onadaptive systems for musical improvisation, gesture and sound analysis/synthesis, critical studies of sound/music technologies and continuing creative performance/composition practice. He holds advanced degrees in pure mathematics and media arts, and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in Music Technology within the Input Devices/Music Interaction and Sound Processing and Control Laboratories at McGill University’s faculty of music.

Steven Dow

PhD Student
HCC
Sensing technology, Max/MSP, Jitter, mixed reality applications

Steven is a first year PhD student in Human Centered Computing. He has an M.S. in HCI from GT and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from U. of Iowa. Steven helped develop the TinyOS sensing platform for TML and is interested in new forms of physical and digital media.

Soyoung Park

Freida Abtan

DCART Concordia 2005Digital music, composition, media choreography,Jitter

After a first degree in maths (combinatorics) at Waterloo, and a second in the DCART Fine Arts program at Concordia, Freida is studying music composition at Université de Montréal.

Elena Frantova

Masters CS student
Concordia University

Elena completed her BFA in Computational Arts and is currently enrolled in Master’s program in Computer Science at Concordia University. She is exploring the possibilities of using responsive environments to study human un/consciousness. Elena collaborates with Dream and Nightmare Laboratory since 2005.

Michael Fortin

Masters CS Student
Concordia University

Michael has expertise and interest in computer graphics, artificial intelligence and artificial life. He has developed some core optimizations of the physics and time-based video computation, as well as GL projects. He is working on some applications of machine vision as part of the Ozone media choreography team.

Magda Wesolkowska

PhD Built Environment
University of Montreal
Anthropology, design, fine arts, biology

Ambient dynamics and architectural prostheses for long term care facilities for patients with Alzheimers. Media Choreogrphy.

David Jhave Johnston

Ph.D. Concordia
Physical compuitng, web

Jhave has worked in computer science and fine art. He created the remixed stream from the TML’s Summer Workshop 2005, as well as the process of Remedios’ Terrarium, a TML group show in March 2008.

Troy Rhoades

MA Film Concordia 2006
Experimental cinema and video

Troy came to study film and philosophy with Erin Manning at Concordia, and is writing about Delueze and cinema. He has developed techniques for nomadic film and video.