Networking Sessions Creative Days Vienna 2025

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.

Jerome Becker is an architect, researcher and co-director of MAGAZIN, an independent exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven, exploring the politics of time in the architecture of public housing and the temporal dispositions of domesticity. In addition to his involvement in editorial projects such as ADATO and dérive, Jerome has been co-organising the Vienna Architecture Summer School since its first edition in 2022.

Curator and creative lead for 180 Studios, 180 the Strand, collaborating with artists to create original exhibitions and art commissions, including The Vinyl Factory: Reverb (2024), UVA - Synchronicity (2023), Gabriel Moses - Regina (2023), Jon Rafman - Minor Daemon Vol.1 (2023), Richard Mosse - Broken Spectre (2022) amongst others. Editor and creative director for Fact, a bi-annual large format publication, online platform and curatorial body focusing on the intersection of electronic music and audio visual art. Creative Director for arts and music enterprise The Vinyl Factory, working with artists and musicians on record releases and publishing.

Gabs is an award-winning XR director, co-founder of vrisch, and founder of XRVienna, Austria's largest XR community. She unites tech and storytelling for clients like UNESCO World Natural Heritage Dürrenstein Reserve and the Red Cross. Her passion began in childhood, sparked by visits to electronics stores with her father, fueling her love for films and theme parks. Born in Paraguay to Syrian-British parents and later living in the US and Vienna, she blends global perspectives into XR. Ambassador for Women in Immersive Tech and named among Forbes Europe’s top 20 Women Founders in 2018, she holds OMOSIROI and Laval Virtual awards for her pioneering work.

Paul Feigelfeld is a cultural and media scientist. After studying cultural studies and computer science in Berlin, he held various positions at the Centre for Digital Cultures Lüneburg, the Art University and the University of Basel, the Strelka Institute Moscow, the University of Applied Arts and the University of Vienna. In 2021-2024, he held the professorship for Knowledge Cultures in the Digital Age at the Institute for Design Research at HBK Braunschweig and is a visiting professor at the Chair of Media Theories at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

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, Angewandte Innovation Lab..

Eva commissions artists working with advanced technologies, and is a collaborator in conceptualising novel approaches, workflows, and philosophies of emerging tech. At Serpentine she has worked with artists such as Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Hito Steyerl, Suzanne Treister, and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, amongst others. Eva is researcher and writer for the annual Future Art Ecosystems briefing, and Co-Investigator of the Creative AI Lab (Serpentine and King’s College London). Eva also has an independent design practice that investigates applications of emerging computation, information, analysis, and predictive technologies, in order to better understand how they form our belief systems.

Carmen Lael Hines’s recent work deals with AI-generated pornography, home automation, femtech, sextech and digital contraception. From 2020 to 2024 she taught critical theory in the Department of Visual Culture at the Vienna University of Technology and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is currently a curator at The Ryder Projects in Madrid. She has taught at the Department of Spatial Design (TU Vienna), at HEAD (Geneva) and at the Institute of Contemporary Art (TU Graz) and has presented her research at many international institutions. She is currently co-editor of the book Dissident Practices: Posthumanist Approaches to a Critique of Political Economy, which will be published by Bloomsbury.

Claudia Larcher is an artist and filmmaker who also works as a teacher. Since 2021, she has been focussing on the role of AI in art, using this technology as an experimental tool to explore the intersection between artistic and machine intelligence. Her artistic work includes film, site-specific video animation, collage, photography and installations. Larcher lives and works in Vienna and has presented her work in numerous exhibitions in Austria and abroad. She has received numerous awards, including the Kunsthalle Wien Prize, the Outstanding Artist Award and the Austrian Art Prize.

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, strategist and founder of co–matter. He works with clients in the tech & creative industries such as Apple, Samsung, Adobe, Google, Lomography 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.

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’.

Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler is a curator and partner at brand unit. Among other things, she curated the exhibition ‘Fast Forward – Fashion in the Media of the 90s’ at the Künstlerhaus and CCAC/San Francisco in 1999. She founded Unit F buero für mode and is the artistic director of the long-lived festival for fashion & photography. As co-editor, she oversaw the book projects Austrian Fashion Design (2014) and Modebuch – Zeitgenössische Mode aus Österreich (2006). In 2019, she curated the exhibition SHOW OFF. Austrian Fashion Design at the MAK.

Daniela Weiss / aka. Litto is a digital artist who examines the worlds of analogue and digital art. Having a background in visual and digital arts, as well as applied Business Administration, in 2017 she has been expanding her artistic research from interaction design and UX Design to the field of mixed reality. In 2020 , she co-founded the web-based AR platform "The Artificial Museum”.

Sofia is the founder & CEO of MUSEUM BOOSTER. She initiated the research project Future Museum, oversees operations & company strategy and steers its development. Having an economical background, she gained experiences working in both non-profit and for-profit cultural organisations in the fields of event organisation, marketing and PR. The special focus of Sofia is in new media technology and its influence on success of museums. From 2014 to 2016, she was studying this correlation as part of her MBA studies at Modul University Vienna. She is a regular speaker at international conferences on the topics of visitor experience, digital strategies, new revenue models and innovation for the museum sector.