ACVA LAB COORDINATORS

Christopher Dodds
Chris is an artist, producer and founding director of Icon.Inc – one of Australia’s most successful digital marketing companies. He completed a research degree at RMIT University on surveillance and art in virtual environments in 2008, and was awarded the inaugural Australia Council Second Life Artist in Residence (with Adam Nash and Justin Clemens).

Greg More
Greg is an artist, designer and director of OOM Creative – a design consultancy specialising in digital environments for creative enterprise. His work has been shown at MoMA NYC, OneDotZero and Resfest Digital Film Festivals, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. He is also a lecturer at RMIT University in the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL).

Adam Nash
Adam is internationally recognised as one of the most innovative and influential artists working in virtual environments. His work has been widely exhibited in Australia, Europe, UK, Asia and the Americas, including at peak festivals SIGGRAPH, ISEA, ZERO1SJ and the Venice Biennale. He was shortlisted for the Premier of Queensland’s National Art Award in New Media, was awarded the inaugural Australia Council Second Life Artist in Residence (with Chris Dodds and Justin Clemens), and was awarded the inaugural Ars Electronica Futurelab residency. Visit Adam's personal site.

ACVA LAB FACILITATORS

Dr Melinda Rackham
For over fifteen years Melinda Rackham has engaged with emergent practices and hybrid artforms as a pioneering networked artist, critic, curator, and cultural producer. Melinda was the first Curator of Networked Media at ACMI and in 2002 she established -empyre-, one of the world’s leading online critical theory forums. As Director of ANAT from 2005 till 2009 Melinda lead Australia's foremost cultural research and emerging technologies organisation to new levels of public engagement. Currently Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, her focus is curating and writing on electronic art and cultures manifested in networked, virtual, responsive, biological, wearable and distributed practices and environments. Visit Melinda's personal site.

Kate Richards
Kate Richards develops, creates and exhibits in the new media bandwidth. She has been working with interactive multimedia for 15 years and exhibits electronic art in Australia and internationally, including video installation, interactive multimedia, data visualisation and web and virtual worlds. Kate’s recent multimedia art projects include ‘eclipse’, an interactive, fictional galaxy in a games engine; ‘Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters’ in Second Life; a 5 channel immersive installation ‘Bystander’ from the Life After Wartime suite; a series of live participatory events called ‘Wayfarer’; datamapping software ‘sub_scape’ and a photomedia exhibition ‘The Uncertainty Principle’. As a multimedia producer, Kate has worked with museums, architects and corporates. Recent clients include the University of Technology Sydney, The Nobel Museum Stockholm, Landini Associates, Jurlique International, Historic Houses Trust NSW, Stalker Theatre Company, the Sydney Olympic Park Authority, Otto Cserhalmi + Partners and also media artists. Kate is a part time lecturer in the Master’s of Convergent Media at University of Western Sydney. Visit Kate's personal site.

ACVA LAB GUEST PRESENTERS

Dr Justin Clemens
Justin gained his PhD from the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on psychoanalysis, contemporary European philosophy, and Australian art and literature. Recent books include Villain (Hunter Publishing 2009) and Black River (re.press 2007), illustrated by Helen Johnson. With Christopher Dodds and Adam Nash, he is the creator of several online art-works, notably Babelswarm (2008) and Autoscopia (2009). He is currently editing The Jacqueline Rose Reader (Duke UP 2010) with Ben Naparstek, and Alain Badiou: Key Concepts (Acumen 2010) with A.J. Bartlett. He is Secretary of the Lacan Circle of Melbourne. Justin was awarded the inaugural Australia Council Second Life Artist in Residence (with Adam Nash and Chris Dodds).

Fee Plumley
Fee is the Digital Program Officer, Australia Council for the Arts. Described as a "Techno-Evangelist" she has produced innovative interactive events for clients including Douglas Rushkoff (Ecstasy Club, Manchester 1997) and the Manchester Literature Festival (The Burgess Project, Manchester 2006). She has curated public screen content (GMI, London, 1999 & BBC Bigger Picture, 2004), enabled community webcasting (Superchannel.org 1999-03) and has been a speaker and a juror at several international arts gatherings (ISEA, Banff New Media Institute, AIMIA and BAFTA) and educational establishments. Owner of the-phone-book Limited (Wireless industry) a creative media agency specialising in mobile phone content creation and wireless interactivity, Fee is best known for encouraging people to be creative with their mobile phones.

Dr Troy Innocent
Troy is a world builder, iconographer and reality newbie. Since 1989, he has been constructing languages and evolving artificial worlds. His works – Iconica (SIGGRAPH 98, USA), and Semiomorph (ISEA02, Japan) – explore the dynamic between the iconic ideal and the personal specific, the real and the simulated, and the way in which our identity is shaped by language and communication. He has received numerous awards, including Honorary Mention, LIFE 2.0: Artificial Life, Spain (1999); Foreign Title Award, MMCA Multimedia Grand Prix, Japan (1998); First Prize, National Digital Art Awards, Australia (1995); and Honorary Mention, Prix Ars Electronica (1992). lifeSigns: an eco-system of signs & symbols (2004), was commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Film Victoria. Innocent is currently Senior Lecturer, Department of Multimedia & Digital Arts, Monash University, Melbourne. His most recent work is an urban art environment entitled Colony within Digital Harbour at the Docklands, Melbourne. Innocent is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Boutwell Draper Gallery, and Hugo Michell Gallery. Visit Troy's personal site.

Gillian Raymond
Gill is the Online Manager for the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. She has a background in Art History and Curatorship, specialising in Australian Abstract Expressionist painting. For the past six years in her role as Online Manager she has embraced an ill-suppressed love for all things digital. At the National Portrait Gallery she has driven a program focussed on design, interpretation and access to the ideas and concepts surrounding identity which challenge traditional notions of portraiture. She developed and produced the Portrait Stories digital films project and instigated the Gallery's online exhibition program for which she has curated a series of exhibitions. These include Animated: Self Portraits Online (2007) and, most recently, doppelgänger, one of the first exhibitions curated by a cultural institution specifically for Second Life (2009).