Creative Days: Networking Sessions

As a partner of Vienna- based creative practice for Architecture and Design, Open Fields, Zeynep is at the forefront of technological developments in the practice. She also provides strategic consultancy services to businesses seeking to embrace AI-driven innovation and data-based design in their workflows. She is a Research Associate and lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, an Assistant Professor at TU Vienna, and a respected faculty member at IAAC Barcelona. Zeynep is a distinguished figure at the intersection of AI, architecture, and design, known for her expertise and insights shared through public lectures.

Sergiu Ardelean, an Austrian entrepreneur, is a co-founder of Artivive, a successful Augmented Reality tool uniting physical and digital art. With a global community of 400,000 creatives across 190 countries, Artivive is revolutionizing creative expression worldwide.

Mirella Bärnthaler holds a Master's degree in European Project and Public Management and worked in the creative and cultural industries before turning to new technologies. She gained her experience in blockchain-based token economy projects, asset development for the energy market, validation processes and governance in DAOs. Her clients include the European Commission, UNICEF and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Her focus lies on implementing the token economy in community governance and expanding community engagement through digital reward structures for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Gabs works at the crossroads of tech, entertainment, and communication. Through her award-winning studio vrisch, her leadership at Austria’s XR community XRVienna, her role as ambassador of Women in Immersive Tech EU, Euromersive, and AIXR, and as a people-loving human, she creates innovation opportunities by finding connections between everything.

Dr. Paul Feigelfeld is a cultural, media and design theorist and curator. He currently holds the professorship for Cultures of Knowledge in the Digital Age at the Institute for Design Research at the Braunschweig University of Art. His work explores transcultural approaches to the history of media and knowledge (with a focus on China), critical perspectives on technologies such as Machine Learning, surveillance infrastructures and cryptology, and their intersections with art and design. He has advised and worked for art institutions such as Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, HKW Berlin, Vitra Design Museum, or the MAK Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, were he was guest curator of the 2019 Vienna Biennial.

Eva Fischer is a curator, cultural manager and lecturer in the fields of media art, immersive media and art & technology. She studied art history and cultural management in Graz, Utrecht and Vienna. She has been the director of the media art festival Civa since 2021. In 2007, she initiated soundframe, which became known as the Vienna Festival for Audiovisual Art and has been operating as a platform for immersive art and media since 2016. Since 2011, she has taught at various universities and universities of applied sciences in the field of experimental media and immersive art. She has curated and co-produced interdisciplinary exhibitions and performance series in institutions such as: Belvedere21, MAK Vienna, AIL - Angewandte Innovation Lab

Djamila Grandits is a Vienna-based curator and film programmer. Part of CineCollective and D/Arts. Currently working on the pre-selection committees of Berlinale Panorama and Diagonale, programming for frameout - digital summer screenings, and member of the non-fiction commission of Zürcher Filmstiftung. Lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Previously programmed with DOK Leipzig, Kasseler Dokfest, sixpackfilm, and tricky women - tricky realities. Former artistic director of this human world - International Human Rights Film Festival. Moderating and hosting various panels, events, and interviews. Djamila cares about entanglements and the exploration of collective spaces.

Artistic Director of Wien Modern Festival since 2016. From 2012 to 2022, he also directed the festival ZeitRäume Basel - Biennale für neue Musik und Architektur, and from 2004 to 2016 he was chief dramaturge at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, where he was responsible for the rainy days festival, among other things. As a passionate visitor and organiser of concerts of various genres and formats, as an author, editor (including a lexicon of contemporary music from Austria), dramaturge and curator for various publishers, media and event organisers, as a jury member (including the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, Deutscher Musikrat, Impuls neue Musik) and as an occasional musician, he has been intensively involved with new music and its environment.

Veronika Liebl is currently the Ars Electronica’s Director of European Cooperation and the Managing Director of its Festival/Prix/Exhibitions department. She studied economics and business science and has an interdisciplinary background in non-profit and innovation management. Since 2011, she has been in charge of cultural management and European project development at the Ars Electronica Linz and serves as an advising member of the City of Linz Culture Council and the executive board of the Linz UNESCO City of Media Arts. For over ten years she has been involved in programming and the production of collaborative programs with partners from the arts, sciences and industry.

Severin Matusek is a writer and strategist. He's the founder of co–matter, a research and design studio investigating the sociocultural effects of networked technology. Severin is the host of The Culture & Technology Podcast and publisher of critically acclaimed reports on internet culture such as Post-Social Media (2020), After the Creator Economy (2022) and Networked Counterculture (2023). He studied philosophy in Vienna and Paris and lives in Berlin.

Stephanie Meisl has been engaged in the field of visual media since 1997, witnessing the significant shift from analog to digital media. Her artworks often mirror the continuous societal upheavals primarily instigated by media. In 2022, together with Scharmien Zandi and Sarah Scherer, she established D#AVANTGARDE, a new technology, creativity and art Community, intending to bridge new technologies and traditional arts. With the digital twin (avatar) S.Myselle, Stephanie Meisl, created an AI-Influencer Persona who portrays and opens the discussion to her question “What does it mean to be human in the age of machines?.”

Milenova's primary focus is interaction. As a new media artist, curator, and educator, her work ranges from research-driven game novels to audiovisual compositions and workshops. Her artistic practice explores the contradictory relationships between humans and technologies. Throughout her narratives, she observes alternative approaches to immersive experiences while questioning the already known. Her background in media art and pedagogy inspires her to find ways to communicate digital concepts in a playful manner. Her work carries the ability to open conversations. She was part of the core team of major European media art festivals. Such as CIVA Festival Vienna 2022-2023, Digitale Welten 2022 Frankfurt, and Ars Electronica Linz 2017-2019.

Konstantin Mitgutsch is a researcher, author and game designer specialising in transformative learning experiences and digital games. He is the founder of the Viennese game design agency Playful Solutions, which develops playful experiences with meaning for organisations and educational institutions. He worked at the MIT Game Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna. Mitgutsch is a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the field of experience and game design. He also writes a column for Der Standard on the subject of Play & Work and his publications include books such as ‘Schauplatz Computerspiele’, ‘Sports Video Games’ and ‘Lernen durch Enttäuschung’.

Matthias Moroder studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, art history and philosophy at the University of Vienna, and history and theory of architecture at ETH Zurich. He is co-founder and co-director of the MAGAZIN – exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna as well as a co-founder of the Vienna Architecture Summer School. With Sebastian Bietenhader he is working together as Büro Bietenhader Moroder. MAGAZIN is an exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna founded in 2018, an initiative of the association Verein für zeitgenössische Architektur.

Currently: Adviser & Deputy Head of the Film Department of Division IV – Arts and Culture at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. Cultural Manager and Project Coordinator, Managing Editor and Programmer in the film and arts sector (documenta 14, Diagonale, steirischer herbst, etc.; 2010 – 2020); Academic Staff and Lecturer in the field of Cultural Studies and Art History since 2008 (University of Innsbruck, University of Art and Design Linz, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, etc.) Degree studies in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Vienna and Aix-Marseille II (2003 – 2008).

Charlotte Steenbergen is currently working in Partnership Development at the Wiener Festwochen. With a diverse background in project and event management, digitalisation and sustainability (ESG), she has been moving between generating funds for impactful projects, management and communication for many years.

She studied in Vienna, Paris and London and worked at Raumlabor Berlin and Herzog & de Meuron Basel. Since 2020 she pursues her design-led PhD within the European network TACK at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her work specializes in embodied and multisensory virtuality, exploring the intersection of architecture and scenography. Her performative Extended Reality (xR) installations have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts London, Nieuwe Insituut Rotterdam, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam and nominated for the Dutch Film Award Gouden Calf 2020 and 2023. Through her internet platform, xR Atlas, she advocates for an interdisciplinary historiography of virtual technologies and promotes the recognition of female pioneers in xR.

As a curator and architect of multi-constituent partnerships and funding programs, she is particularly looking at the intersection of institutional and social design, and creative technology, investigating ways to nurture shared social ecology for collaboration across diverse epistemic cultures. Currently she is a research curator of the Future Museum, Museum Leadership House and is redesigning Museum Innovation Barometer with the team. Trained as an art-historian (CUNY, NYC), her long-term research focuses on art institutions as a medium and artistic forms of knowledge production. Former Fulbright scholar and Edmund S. Muskie Fellow.

Gabriel Roland is the director of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK. Besides leading the team organising Austria’s largest curated design festival, he is directly responsible for many of its international relations, commissions and special projects. For example, he initiated the Virtual Festival Headquarters of 2020 and curates the festival’s renowned ‘Passionswege’ format, which brings together design and craft. Roland has a background in textile design as well as fashion and art writing. Apart from VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, he was involved in projects bridging topics as diverse as toys, digital media, pop culture, and the contemporary art market.

Merlić's work is induced by alternative societies and transgressions in socioeconomic conventions as well as novel forms of artistic and architectural production employing new technologies. She has received Marianne.von.Willemer.2020 – Award for Digital Media. Currently, Merlić is working as a senior scientist at the Institute for Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Within the project DOMUM Vienna, which was awarded the Theodor-Körner-Preis in 2023, she is researching the vanishing of Kissaten and Kaffeehaus architecture as nourishing social spaces of the contemporary cityscape.