Anastasia is an artist / designer who creates installation and graphic art to explore her interests in digital technologies, physical spaces and human-computer interaction. Her background is in architecture and she holds a MArch from UC Berkeley. Over the past decade she has explored a range of domains and tectonics, from ecological systems to digital media. She is currently focused on creating works for virtual, augmented and mixed reality that challenge the ways we interact with our environments and each other.

Andrés Cuervo is a VR/AR software engineer, artist, and storyteller. Interested in how new media might change the stories we can tell, Andrés had explored VR narrative experiences, AR comics, and generative digital toys.

Ashwath is a Creative Technologist from India who lives and works in San Francisco. His varied background and interests has enabled him to pursue projects that involve design, engineering, human interaction and experiential technology. Technology, good food and the great outdoors fascinate him endlessly and he tries to immerse myself in all of these things through his work and hobbies. Ashwath pursues projects that involve physical computing, Augmented Reality, LEDs and music.

Michael is a screenwriter, transmedia director, and expert in place-based storytelling. He has a M.S. degree in Comparative Media Studies from M.I.T. where he specialized in developing multiplatform documentary films. In 2006 Michael founded Walking Cinema (www.walkingcinema.org), an interactive storytelling studio comprised of filmmakers, developers, and designers specializing in cinematic applications for mobile devices. The company has developed cross-platform apps for MTV, PBS, the Venice Biennale, Audible and many museum and broadcast clients. Untravel’s 2009 project WALKING CINEMA: MURDER ON BEACON HILL (see: www.parkmanmurder.com) extended a PBS American Experience documentary into the streets of Boston as a mobile app. The app uses historic sites, interactive installations, and GPS guided video to rehash the details of a 160-year-old unsolved murder. The project was the first iPhone app to win an award at a major film festival, garnered international press, and has been continuously running in Boston for 8 years. In 2013 Michael directed the Gold Muse-winning WALKING CINEMA: POSTS FROM GLOUCESTER. Built in tandem with a $1.5M Harborwalk along America’s oldest fishing port, this handheld documentary and series of installations recounts one local’s channeling her family’s traditions via a series of postcards from the past. Michael is currently working on WALKING CINEMA: MUSEUM OF THE HIDDEN CITY, a hybrid popup museum/documentary about San Francisco’s current tech. boom. The story blends smartphone photography, citizen science, and first-person narratives in an immersive experience of the fastest changing city in the U.S. In 2017 the project was awarded a $100K grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Epstein is also created and is produces an original podcast for Audible’s Originals platform. Titled “Booksteps,” the show is a series of walks through neighborhoods that inspire authors’ writings. He is currently in development with Audible/Amazon on another series about a Philosopher/Artist who becomes a “disruption” consultant to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. In the fall of 2014, Epstein took a position as Adjunct Professor at the California College of Art, teaching two interdisciplinary studios: “Landmarks, Memory, and Mobile Media” and “The Peripatetic Wunderkammer.”

I am a speculative designer based in San Francisco. I came from an industrial design background and pursued MFA Design at California College of Arts from 2013 to 2017. My passion lies in challenging cultural stereotypes and preconceptions through speculative design. Expanding technologies’ possibilities to address Climate challenges fascinates me. I explored methods of design alternative futures by crafting fictional but solid systems, scenarios, and products to promote plausible futures. I am extremely curious and enthusiastic about how people interact with the environment and tools in diverse contexts. I consider design as a thinking mode and a making tool. As a creative and energetic designer, I am challenging myself every day to use the power of design to frame possible problems, to explore plausible opportunities, and to fuel positive change.

Exploring interaction systems through digital art, Stephen utilizes techniques such as procedural generation, projection mapping,  and physical computing to create interactive installations exploring dimensionality and perception. In the Experiential Space Research Lab, he will further his artistic explorations into the subtle and fundamental dialogue between environment and mind.

I’m a multimedia artist and product designer. I sit at the intersection of aesthetics, engineering, and the human experience.

Xiaohan Zhang is a New Media Artist specializing in real-time, interactive, audio-visual digital art installations and web experiences. His work is inspired by physical, chemical, biological and ecological processes of the natural world, combined with aesthetic polish and form. His work quickly changes in response to user input, creating an iterative feedback loop of play that conveys an intuitive understanding of how the system responds. He hopes that in doing so the viewer may find insight, wonder, and an appreciation of the underlying forces that govern our lives. He shows work at events, festivals, and hosts workshops with organizations such as Gray Area, CODAME, UC Berkeley, and Stanford, as well as in online exhibitions such as The Wrong biennale. You can find him online at www.hellochar.com.