Art of Digital - Speakers

Art of Digital Conference

Matt Mason
Matt Mason is a Writer, consultant and entrepreneur. How youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. Author, The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism, on the problems and opportunities created by the rise of piracy and its potential as a business model.

Roy Boulter (Hurricane Films)
Following a successful career in music as a member of the chart-topping band The Farm, Roy turned to scriptwriting, gaining over a hundred and thirty television writing credits - including an eight-year stint on Brookside. He became a company director of Hurricane Films in 2001; writing, producing and directing projects for the company as well continuing with freelance writing work for radio and television – including the second - BAFTA winning - series of Jimmy McGovern’s ‘The Street’ for BBC 1. Roy Produced Hurricane’s debut feature, ‘Under The Mud’ and also Produced Terence Davies feature ‘Of Time And The City’.

Solon Papadopoulos (Hurricane Films)
Starting out as a marine engineer, Sol began his creative life as a stills photographer before progressing on to moving image following a 16mm course at the National Film School. After making documentaries and short dramas as a freelancer -collecting a number of awards along the way - he founded Hurricane Films in March 2000, collecting more awards and a BAFTA nomination. Sol also Produced and Directed ‘Under The Mud’ and Produced ‘Of Time And The City’.

Kisky Netmedia
Kisky Netmedia has been at the forefront of emerging technologies since it launched in 2002. The company has a history of creating projects based on fresh and forward thinking, working to deliver Social Media and Social Mobile consulting services to big name clients and on its own 'special projects' around Mobile 2.0.

Kisky Netmedia's work is about pushing existing technologies to their fullest potential; about blending new platforms, bridging divides and uniting people through creative collaboration. The company is currently focusing on one major project, and thinking deeply about: social mobile web technologies; socio-personal information architecture; identity, time and place, sustainability, responsibility and enlightenment; and creating delightful experiences for global citizens.

Representing Kisky are company co-founder/director Paul Stringer and Community and Communications Manager Jonathan Deamer.

Jen Allanson
Jen Allanson is a mixed-media artist and interactive systems designer.

Since 1997 she has been developing interactive applications in the areas of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Virtual Reality, Tangible Awareness Landscapes, Physiological Computing, Affective Computer Gaming, Brain-Computer Interaction, Art and Technology. In 2002 she was a founder member of interactive arts group .:the POOCH:. (www.thepooch.com). Between 1999 and 2004 she was a lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction in the Schools of Computer Science at Lancaster and Liverpool John Moores University. She currently holds an honorary lectureship in the School of Psychology at LJMU.

Jen is a prolific film photographer and member of Liverpool’s Fab Collective. The Collective was formed early in 2009 when a group of Northwest photographers came together with the aim of putting together an exhibition. They had initially become aware of each others work through the photo-sharing website Flickr. Interactive technologies remain at the heart of Fab Collective. They have been instrumental in building the brand, promoting the Collective’s activities and, most significantly, supporting the evolution of a community of creative practitioners.

Marcus Romer
Marcus is the Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre, the national touring theatre company based at York Theatre Royal.

His production of Lord of the Flies for Pilot Theatre has had five national UK tours and has received a TMA award nomination and won a Manchester Evening News award. His co-production of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing with the Octagon Theatre, Bolton won two Manchester Evening News Awards in 2005. For Pilot Theatre he has directed most recently Looking for JJ, by Anne Cassidy, which has just won the TMA award for best production for young people 2008. It was also nominated for a Manchester Evening News Award. He has also directed Sing yer heart out for the lads by Roy Williams to great Critical acclaim. Other plays include Road , The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Bloodtide, ASL, Look back in Anger, Abigail's Party, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Mirad a boy from Bosnia, at York Theatre Royal, The Twits at Bolton Octagon and Artsdepot London. The Elephant Man The Swan Worcester

He is also a published playwright and he has adapted and directed the world premiere of Susan Hinton's cult classic Rumble Fish which again toured nationally and opened in Oklahoma last year. He adapted Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess which again toured nationally and has recently adapted Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy, and Fungus the Bogeyman, by Raymond Briggs.

Steve Fuller
Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Originally trained in history and philosophy of science, Fuller is best known for his work in the field of ‘social epistemology’, which addresses normative philosophical questions about organized knowledge by historical and social scientific means. He has published sixteen books and his work has been translated into nearly twenty languages. He has most recently published The Sociology of Intellectual Life: The Career of the Mind In and Around the Academy (Sage, 2009) and is working on two other books, Science: The Art of Living (Acumen, 2010) and Humanity 2.0 (Palgrave, 2010). He was the UK Partner of the European Union FP6 project on ‘Knowledge Politics of Converging Technologies’, and recently completed an evaluation of the 46-project ‘Science in Society Programme’ that the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council funded from 2003 to 2007. Fuller was awarded in 2007 a ‘higher doctorate’ (D.Litt.) by Warwick for long-term major contributions to scholarship. In 2008, he was Sociology and Social Policy section President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/sfuller/fullers_index

Peter Dreyer
Peter Dreyer is co-founder of Seismonaut (DK) and has a special focus on innovation based on Web Squared (link) developments. Peter graduated from University of Århus with a degree in astronomy, followed by a Ph. D in applied artificial neural networks. From thereon he moved into the ICT sector. Prior to founding Seismonaut, Peters professional career has covered a broad range of positions in the IT industry. In 2005 he was appointed chairman of experts in a technology foresight study carried out for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Peter is a board member of Agrotech and of DANSK-IT where his particular focus of interest is on IT, climate and energy. Peter is fond of classic sports cars designed back in the days when IT was nothing but a personal pronoun. In his spare time he is a novelist.

Learning Lab 4 – The Global

Adrian McEwen

With a life-long interest in technology, Adrian McEwen spent the early part of his career building web browsers for mobile phones with a startup that was acquired by Microsoft in the late 90s. After a few years with Microsoft he left to start MCQN Ltd, a consultancy working at the intersection of web, mobile and ubiquitous computing to help companies get to grips with the Internet of Things. This work has ranged from leading a team to prototype a new phone user-interface for Motorola, connecting the River Mersey to Twitter and developing hardware to monitor electricity usage and graph it on the Internet.

Anne La Foret

Anne Laforet has recently completed her PhD in information science (from the University of Avignon in France) on the preservation of net art. Her PhD thesis will be published in the autumn by the French publisher Editions Anwar. She has written a report entitled "Net art and artistic institutions and museums" for the French Ministery of Culture in 2004. She has presented her research in Europe and Canada. She's currently an associated researcher at ESIEA school in the Artnum lab.

Anne writes on digital art and digital culture for the French online magazine Poptronics and the website of the French-German public TV channel Arte.

Anne takes part in collaborative projects of art and research. She has just started a series of workshops and online discussions on the use of open formats by the artists and makers to extend the life span of their works.

Ross Parry

Ross has been Lecturer in Museums and New Media at the University of Leicester since 1998, and in 2006 was made an HIRF Innovations Fellow. He is Programme Director for the campus-based Masters course, chair of the Digital Heritage Research Group (DHRG) and supervisor to four PhD students.

Colin Pattison

Colin Pattinson is a Professor of Mobile and Converging Technologies. Colin has been active in research in computer network management and performance measurement for most of his career at Leeds Met. He is particularly interested in the development of simulation-based network management training systems, which are currently used by students on his courses. His current research interests centre on performance and security issues in mobile networks, and the environmental impact of the manufacture; use and disposal of computing technologies.

Learning Lab 3 – The Organisational

Brian Degger

Brian Degger PhD Biotech is an artist/researcher and biologist based in Newcastle(UK). His work with Blast Theory on I Like Frank in Adelaide formed the basis of a paper on how artists access cutting edge technology. He is a maker, showing the Arduino-based LightResponsiveDevices at the recent UK Maker Faire in Newcastle. Currently he is a digital fellow at Digital City Teesside, where he is investigating new opportunities for artists to interact with the life sciences.

James Burke

James Burke is a freelance interaction designer and co-founder of NARB http://www.narb.me. When he’s not working on engaging with museums, galleries, visitors, artists and the art community in general he runs a consultancy working on issues as diverse as open government to ubiquitious computing.

Heath Bunting

Heath Bunting was born a Buddhist in Wood Green, London, UK and is able to make himself laugh. He is a co-founder of both net.art and sport-art movements and is banned for life from entering the USA for his anti GM work. His self taught and authentically independent work is direct and uncomplicated and has never been awarded a prize or been bought or sold. He is both Britain’s most important practising artist and The World’s most famous computer artist. He aspires to be a skillful member of the public and is producing an expert system for identity mutation.

Adrian McEwen

Alison Gow has worked as a journalist on regional papers across England and Wales for 20 years, most recently as deputy editor of the Liverpool Daily Post. Since February 2009 she has held a new responsibility across Trinity Mirror’s Merseyside titles, taking the role of executive editor, digital, with a brief for the daily and weekly titles’ online, mobile and broadcast strategy. She is fascinated by the ever-expanding opportunties for newsgathering, story-telling and journalism and believes the future of newspapers lies with media companies moving towards collaboration with audiences, rather than creating information silos. But it’s all a long way from the days when she used to pass a satchel of hand-typed copy to a friendly bus driver whose route took him past her head office, and who would drop it off with the printers for the price of a free copy of the Western Telegraph once a week…

Will Gompertz

Will Gompertz is the Director of Tate Media, which comprises of Tate Productions: Tate’s film, television and online content arm, Tate Online, Tate ETC. magazine, Communications, Membership and Ticketing Services, the UBS Long Weekend performance art festival. Will is also responsible for the Tate’s award winning brand strategy. Will has been a Director of Tate since 2002. Before joining Tate he was a founding director of Purple House where from 1996 to 2002 he published many titles including ZOO, the visual arts quarterly. He was Founding director of Shots Ltd from 1990 to 1996, a publishing company specialising in the moving image. Will is a Board member of the National Campaign for the Arts and the Manchester Media Festival as well as being the co-founder and editor of the arts review website, CultureCritic.co.uk. Will also writes regularly for the Guardian.

Millicent Jones

Executive Director (Marketing, Communications and Fundraising) Millicent re-located to the UK and joined the Phil in 2005 after spending five years as Director of Marketing with San Francisco Performances, that city’s premiere presenter of chamber music, recitals, jazz and contemporary dance. Prior to that she worked as Marketing Director with Bournemouth Orchestras as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also worked with Select Ticketing (now Tickets.com) as their UK Customer Services director. She received an MBA from the University of Michigan, whilst working with the University Musical Society, one of the top 5 performing arts presenters in the US. Her publications include Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti: The Three Tenors (Bison Books, 1996) and Washington DC from the Air (Thunder Bay Press, 2000).

Ian Forrester

Ian Forrester heads up the BBC’s Backstage, a developer/designer network like no other. His role as head of BBC Backstage includes working with internal and external developers/designers to express their creativity through BBC feeds and APIs. Backstage makes available as much BBC data as possible for any member of the public to republish, remix and mash-up under a non-commercial license. Ian is also well known for geek social events, including London Geekdinners, BarCampLondon, Hackday, Mashed, Edinburgh TV Un-Festival and recently Over the Air. He’s currently master minding plans for something which will raise the profile of development and geeks in the UK, a series of Backstage outreach events and is a founder of the dataportability.org group. Somehow, Ian finds time to blog online regularly at his personal blog cubicgarden.com

Charlotte Britton

Charlotte studied Food Science, Economics & Marketing at Reading & joined ASDA Graduate Training Scheme in 1995. She worked at various stores on the south coast for 3 years, & aged 24 was fresh food manager for £2 million turnover department & 80 colleagues. She then moved up to ASDA HQ to work in the ASDA brand department in 1995 & after 18 months moved over to to join the Internet Shopping team. She then left to join an online marketing agency. She then joined _Pollenation (http://www.pollenation.net) in 2005 as one of the directors & grew company from turnover of £80k to £284k in 1 year. She negotiated a sale of the company to Brunswick MCL in May 2007. Pollenation is an open source software consultancy, focusing on delivering blue chip standard software to SMEs. Charlotte now is working with www.reachfurther.com who work with businesses to embed social and collaborative technologies to deliver learning & commercial advantage. We manage many online communities and deliver online courses for a number of different colleges, schools and universities. Outside work Charlotte is the Chairman of IoD Yorkshire & Humber Young Directors Forum & sits on the Common Purpose Leeds Advisory Gorup. Charlotte also enjoys photography, walking, cooking, silk painting / textile design& last year started having piano lessons after 16 years!

Learning Lab 1 – The Cultural

Jamie King

Jamie King is founder of the VODO project for distributing and sustaining cultural production via P2P (www.vodo.net) and Director/Producer of the STEAL THIS FILM series (www.stealthisfilm.com), which has been downloaded more than 6m times, broadcast internationally, and screened at festivals worldwide. Jamie’s work focuses on the radical creative possibilities offered by new media. He is currently in post-production with a five part net-show and feature, DARK FIBRE (www.darkfibre.in), comissioned by FACT and Arts Council England. When not working on projects, Jamie lectures worldwide on the changes digital networks are brining to creativity and cultural production. In 2008 he keynoted the Creative Commons Conference in Sapporo and London Film Festival’s Power To The Pixel. He continues to consult for a number of high-profile firms and organisations, including the UK’s Royal Society of Arts, Channel 4 Television and RTL. His essays, articles and ideas are published internationally, including in The Times, Guardian and Telegraph newspapers. He lives at (www.jamie.com) and in Kreuzberg, Berlin.

Peter Bazalgette

Peter Bazalgette is a media consultant specialising in television and digital entertainment. He is non-Executive Chairman of two of Sony’s television divisions in the UK, a non-executive director of MyVideoRights and a member of BBH’s Advisory Board. From 2004-2007 he was Chief Creative Officer of Endemol. He has personally devised several internationally successful TV formats, such as Ready Steady Cook and Changing Rooms. He also brought Big Brother to the UK. Peter’s book about the business of TV formats, Billion Dollar Game, was published in 2005. Peter is also a non-executive director of YouGov and a former Board member of Channel 4. He serves as Deputy Chairman of the National Film and Television School and on the Board of English National Opera.

Katie Lips

Katie Lips is a Technology Strategist working predominantly with Mobile. Her new initiative “Appostles” (http://www.appostles.com) is a new, cross European agency focussing on creating the best in Android and iPhone apps. Helping clients make the move to “new mobile”, Katie is an evangelist for iPhone and Android platforms as they offer the potential for consumers to enjoy enhanced mobile experiences and for developers and entrepreneurs to create new services, and revenue models. A maverick and entrepreneur, Katie is alo cofounder at Treasuremytext.com a mobile 2.0 startup which enables people to keep their treasured SMS messages forever. Treasuremytext for Android App was a winner in the Android Dev Camp Amsterdam Developer challenge. Katie’s recent projects include “The Amazing iPhone”: a report for business owners. Katie is a well known speaker on the topic of ‘New Mobile’; and helps businesses and organisations to harness new and established technologies. (http://www.kisky.co.uk)