Creative Days Vienna 2026

He is co-author of the books The Extreme Self and The Age of Earthquakes, both with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Basar has been Commissioner at Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum since 2011; founding member of Fondazione Prada’s Thought Council; conducted special projects at Prada and Miu Miu; Curator of Public Program at Art Week Riyadh 2025; Expert Advisory Group for the Royal Commission of AlUla; Curator-at-Large at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; and co-founder of web3 startup Zien. In 2025, Basar contributed to establishing Ibraaz, a London-located space for art, culture and ideas from the global majority. He's also known for his neologisms — such as "Endcore" and "Lorecore" — which act as navigational tools in the extreme present.

Based in London, her work explores how technology shapes myth. As Contributing Editor at Dazed Magazine and former External Research Associate at Moth Quantum, Günseli investigates internet folklore, tracking how emerging technologies – from AI to quantum computing – give rise to new ideologies, digital superstitions and collective fantasies. Her writing has appeared in Art Review, Dazed Magazine, Spike Art and 032c, as well as in publications for Aksioma, Ars Electronica, LAS Art Foundation, among others. As a member of the multidisciplinary audiovisual project The Talk, she collaborates with musicians James K and Heith, and architect Andrea Belosi, transforming research into immersive performance.

Severin Matusek is a writer, strategist and founder of co–matter. He works with clients in the tech & creative industries such as Apple, Samsung, Adobe, Google, WeTransfer and Colette; and the cultural sector such as Serpentine, International Center of Photography and C/O Berlin. Severin is a mentor at NEW INC, a jury member of The Supporting Act Foundation and the host of The Culture & Technology Podcast. He holds a M.A. in philosophy from the University of Vienna and has taught and lectured widely on internet culture, community building and the future of the social web.

Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör has been head of Creativity & Business at the Vienna Business Agency since June 2014. In 2009, she co-founded the gallery festival "curated by_vienna”. In 2019, she and her team launched the Creative Days Vienna – a platform that deals with the opportunities of the latest technological and social developments for the creative industries. Noever-Ginthör is also active as a lecturer, juror and author.

Heinz Wolf works as a project manager and expert in the fields of music, film, and publishing. Since 2019, he has been responsible for the Culture & Technology focus at the Vienna Business Agency and also serves as co-curator of the Creative Days Vienna.

Calum Bowden is an artist, designer, and researcher at the intersection of technology and organization. He co-founded Trust, a platform for utopian thinkers and practitioners, collaborating on games, digital tools, decision-making mechanisms, and methods for cooperative knowledge exchange. From 2020-2023, Calum was a maintainer of Black Swan DAO, a collective pursuing horizontal and decentralized approaches to art making. In this way, Calum creates infrastructures that relink culture, technology, and political economy. He advises cultural organizations on digital communities, para-institutions, and DAOs, facilitating co-design workshops, conferences, and role-playing games. Calum is a PhD candidate in Sociology of Organization and Culture a

Marlène Delrive is a game designer and artist passionate about games that make you feel something. She has experience with the full range of emotion – from award-winning comedy games like WHAT THE GOLF? and WHAT THE CAR?, to emotional games. She’s a co-founder of Autoscopia Interactive, a small studio scattered across three countries, and As Long As You’re Here is their debut title.

Clara Grillmaier is a co-founder of NeverAtHome and a member of the Brand Unit agency. For NeverAtHome, she develops formats at the intersection of art, space, and the public sphere. She is also responsible for project coordination and the strategic direction of the initiative. Through this work, she has acquired specific expertise in the use of vacant spaces and in the conception of site-specific exhibition formats. She has realized exhibitions and projects in the context of the Vienna Festival, the Vienna Climate Biennale, and Foto Wien, among others. In her role as a consultant and project manager at Brand Unit, she brings this knowledge from the cultural landscape to bear on a variety of projects.

Vera Grillmaier is a cultural manager, curator, and ceramic designer who works at the intersection of artistic production and institutional practice. Since 2025, she has served as Managing Director of the cultural initiative NeverAtHome, which has been realizing site-specific programs in architecturally significant vacant spaces since 2021 and addresses issues of temporary use, cultural infrastructure, and urban transformation. She also specializes in developing dialogue formats that focus on interdisciplinary work between art, technology, and science. In parallel, she works as a ceramic designer and completed her master’s examination in 2025.

With a background in fashion design and visual art, she engages in interdisciplinary collaborations across performance, film and choreography. Her artistic practice examines how movement, music and cultural memory shape human experience, viewing rhythm as an alchemical force that reveals what humans carry within and across time, individually and collectively, emotionally and historically. Cat Jimenez’ own pieces have been presented, for example, at the imagetanz festival at brut Wien, the Ars Electronica Festival, Sound:Frame and the 12th Festival for Fashion and Photography. For three years in a row, Cat Jimenez curated the dance programme at the Kultursommer Wien festival.

At the Vienna Business Agency, she works as an expert in the Digital Economy Department, where she develops services, programs and networking formats for Vienna’s AI and data economy. Her focus lies on values-based support for the city’s digital sector in the spirit of digital humanism and on exploring the intersection of ICT and sustainability. Previously, she served as Head of European Projects at the Ars Electronica Festival Linz and, as executive producer, oversaw the redesign of the Ars Electronica Center in 2019. Her research interests concern human-centered, values-driven digital technology development and its sociopolitical and societal implications. She also supports responsible innovation and cooperation in global tech ecosystems.

Klimentina'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.

As a creative director, strategist and designer Christie brings her deep interests in digital culture, technology, innovation and ecology to form an interdisciplinary, worldbuilding practice. She has hosted a number of talks, lectures and workshops for events such as London Design Festival, Nicer Tuesdays, Milan Design Week, Forward Festival, INTL Assembly and Us By Night and regularly collaborates with institutions such as London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins. Outside of her work at SOFTER, Christie translates emerging technologies, cultural shifts and strategic insight into visual worlds, campaigns and experiences through her studio Pitch Studios.

Jogi Neufeld is the founder of Subotron – the platform for games culture in Vienna. He teaches at universities, universities of applied sciences and other educational institutions, is a curator at the Technical Museum Vienna, and Game Director of an indie dev studio.

NODE Media Lab is a Vienna-based, non-profit and multidisciplinary creative centre founded in 2021 by Ozan Turkkan and Burcu Öztürkler. The focus is on research and production of interdisciplinary experiences at the intersection of media art, science and technology. NODE Media Lab integrates new media technologies into the creative process and builds a bridge between digital and physical reality. As an interdisciplinary and collaborative platform, NODE Media Lab focuses on the relationship between technology, visual culture and performance in contemporary art. The central focus is on the promotion of digitisation and digital archiving - in Vienna and beyond.

Paloma is a wholehearted explorer who navigates various social, professional, and investigative endeavors connecting people, ideas, and passions. Author of the book “Diversifying Open Source” by Apress, a book that emerges from years of collaborative culture work—building together with great minds toward more kind, socially just, and regenerative ways of working and being together. She focuses on technologies that enable autonomy, equity, and care for humans and the more-than-human world, recognizing that our digital futures are inextricably woven with ecological wellbeing. Currently working at the Sovereign Tech Agency, she is helping define what open digital infrastructure is and how that is shaping the commons we all rely on.

Brooklyn J. Pakathi is a transmedia artist, independent curator, and co-founder of AREA [404]. Within AREA [404], their work focuses on the critical examination of digital infrastructures and the political conditions shaping collective digital existence. Outside the initiative, Pakathi maintains an independent studio practice interrogating the ontology of emotion through affect theory and phenomenology, and a curatorial practice developing decolonial exhibition strategies that embed cultural equity into institutional space.

Nadia Piet (she/her) is an independent researcher, designer, and organizer focused on critical AI, digital culture, technology, and participatory practices. She is the co-founder and creative director of AIxDESIGN—a global community and decentralized research lab nourishing critical, creative, and communal approaches to AI since 2018. Currently she serves as researcher-in-residence at Netherlands Film Academy, faculty at ELISAVA Barcelona, mentor at NEW INC, and works on other freelance and self-initiated projects that explore how we shape technology and it shapes us in return. When offline, she enjoys practicing yoga, handtufting fluffy rugs, upcycling furnitures, collaging, or searching for nudibranches underwater.

Ramón Reichert, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for AI, Society, and Critique (CASC) in Berlin and a Senior Researcher in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His research is situated at the intersection of digital culture, media theory, and critical data studies, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, algorithmic governance, platform economies, and the cultural implications of datafication. Reichert is actively involved in interdisciplinary research networks and frequently participates in international conferences, advancing critical approaches to AI and digital transformation in contemporary culture.

Georg Russegger is a trained media artist and holds a PhD in Communication Theory. He worked for years as a researcher, artist, and curator in Japan. As Scientific Manager, he developed the Joint-Master program Ludic Interfaces for the University of Arts Linz. He led the Knowledge Transfer Centre of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and at the Austrian Knowledge Transfer Centres responsible for the SSHA and STEAM agenda. Since 2024, he has been Head of the LBG Open Innovation in Science Center.

Merve Sahin is a Vienna-based architect and researcher using architectural and digital representation techniques as a medium for visual storytelling. “Merging Visions was awarded a Content Vienna production grant in 2025.

Dr. Jutta Scheibelberger works as a Project Manager and Expert in areas including multimedia, the art market, and international network projects at the Vienna Business Agency. Since 2009, she has been heading Content Vienna, the competition for digital design.

Alena Schmuck has been working at the Vienna Business Agency since 2013, helping to raise the profile of Vienna’s creative industries at national and international level, and promoting communication and networking within the sector. Her focus is on multimedia and digital design.

Total View is a media art collective founded in Vienna in 2024 that develops digital strategies to investigate state repression and cultural assimilation. “Sensing Sinicization” was awarded the Content Vienna Digital Literacy Special Prize in 2025.