Alek Tarkowski
is a sociologist, strategist and digital rights activist. He is the Director of Strategy at Open Future. He has 20 years of experience with public interest advocacy, movement building and research into the intersection of society, culture and digital technologies. His work focuses on policies that support digital commons in data, the web and emerging technologies.
Alex Boyes
is a multidisciplinary producer working closely with artist studios and researcher-led teams to scale artistic practice using creative technology. Boyes' project partners have included Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Keiken, The Royal Opera House, The Francis Crick Institute and Serpentine Arts Technologies.
Alex Pleasants
is US Director of international advisory firm Erlam & Co providing strategic advice for established and breakout entrepreneurs, technology leaders and investors, focussing on AI and energy. He founded the All Party Parliamentary Group for Creative Diversity in Parliament, securing partners including YouTube, NBCUniversal, King's College London and University of the Arts London. Pleasants led on culture and tech policy for Lord Ed Vaizey - the UK's longest-serving Culture and Digital Minister - and they continue to write the UK's longest-running arts and tech newsletter, And Finally... He was also previously Head of Government Relations at Tech Nation - the government-backed growth platform for tech companies and founders - and a freelance consultant working on projects with the likes of Liontree, Glassdoor, Nextdoor and the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
is a multidisciplinary artist examining our fraught relationships with nature and technology. She experiments with simulation, representation, and the nonhuman perspective to question the ongoing societal fixation on innovation over preservation. In 2023, she won the S+T+ARTS Grand Prize -- Artistic Exploration for her experimental interspecies living artwork, Pollinator Pathmaker. She received her Ph.D. from the Royal College of Art and is resident at Somerset House Studios, London. In 2024, Ginsberg was commissioned by Manifesta, the European Nomadic Biennial, to create her first stained glass window installation, Every Thing Eats Light and she opened her first solo exhibition in Sweden at Bildmuseet, Umeå, expanding her immersive light and sound installation Machine Auguries (2019-ongoing) with a new edition.
Ali Hossaini
works at the cutting edge of art, science and technology. Museums, theatres, galleries and festivals around the world have exhibited his immersive digital art, winning acclaim from the New York Times, which describes him as 'a biochemist turned philosopher, turned television producer, turned visual poet.' A co-founder of National Gallery X, he is Professor of Digital Media and Communication at SOAS and a Senior Research Fellow in Engineering at King's College London.
Alice Bucknell
is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Their recent work has focused on creating cinematic universes within game worlds, exploring the affective dimensions of video games as interfaces for understanding complex systems, relations and forms of knowledge. Their work has appeared internationally at Ars Electronica, transmediale, LUMINEX, LEV in Madrid, Serpentine, the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Gray Area in San Francisco, and the Singapore Art Museum, and elsewhere. Their writing appears in publications including ArtReview, e-flux architecture, frieze, Flash Art, the Harvard Design Magazine, and Mousse.
Amy Tarr
is Head of Policy & Public Affairs at Creative UK, the national body for the UK's cultural and creative industries. With over 15 years of experience spanning Parliament, think tanks and high-impact advocacy, Amy specialises in shaping investment frameworks, championing creative talent and driving policy change on issues ranging from AI and intellectual property to access to finance.
Amy Whitaker
is an Associate Professor at NYU and scholar-artist who develops economic models for artistic sustainability. She is the author of four books: Museum Legs, Art Thinking, Economics of Visual Art, and (with Nora Burnett Abrams) The Story of NFTs. She has written NFT primers for Art Basel, ENCATC Magazine, and Artivate. Her work on fractional equity in art using blockchain received the Edith Penrose Award for 'trailblazing' research that challenges orthodoxies and has impact. From 2015 to 2025, she was an advisor to the early-stage blockchain company Bitmark.
Anicka Yi
has produced a unique body of work over the past decade spent at the intersection of politics and macrobiotics. Her practice questions the increasingly hazy taxonomic distinctions between what is human, animal, plant and/or machine, and is the result of an alchemical process of experimentation that explores often incompatible materials. She collaborates with researchers to create media that are often inherently political, delving into the cultural conditioning of sense and perception she describes as a 'biopolitics of the senses.' Her diverse installations, which draw on scientific concepts and techniques to activate vivid fictional scenarios, ask incisive questions about human psychology and the workings of society.
Annette Mees
is an award-winning theatre-maker, dramaturg and creative director. She is known for innovative, experiential work that defies definition. She has worked across art genres on new forms of storytelling and interdisciplinary co-creation. She works with cultural organisations including The Public (NYC), National Arts Centre (Canada), cultural institutions including the National Gallery (UK), the National Ballet of Canada, NITE (NL), the European Cultural Foundation and the Southbank Centre (UK) as well as technology companies including Imaginarium Studios, Google Creative Lab, Magic Leap and SIRT. She is the Chair of FutureEverything, the first arts organisation in the UK to put nature on its board, and is a co-host of global conversation on The Future of Culture.
Aslak Aamot Helm
works on building alliances, experiments, and organisations across art, science, advanced technologies and industry. He is co-founder of the transdisciplinary studio Diakron and Primer, a platform for artistic and organisational development housed in the biotech company Aquaporin. He has worked as a facilitator for large transdisciplinary groups engaged in long-term strategic processes and as a consultant to universities, museums, tech companies, and incubators. As of 2026, he is working on a postdoctoral research project funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, tracing the aesthetics of rising levels of unknowability in the biological sciences in collaboration with institutional partners in biomedical research and natural history.
Benny Giang
is the co-founder of Future Primitive, building Perma, a photo-sharing network that preserves the human perspective in an AI-saturated world. Perma connects people through authentic, unedited imagery, ensuring digital memories remain meaningful and verifiable. As a founding team member of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs, he has shaped internet-native objects (e.g., NFTs) since 2016 - from helping to develop the ERC-721 standard to launching NBA Top Shot and Tokenbound Accounts (ERC-6551).
Cher Potter
is former Curatorial Director of Future Observatory, a national programme at the Design Museum that curates, funds and publishes design for the green transition. She is currently working to launch a new trust within the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts that will fund and connect cultural initiatives that work towards ecological transformation. She is an editor on the Future Observatory Journal, published at the Design Museum.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
works predominantly in animation, sound, performance and video game development with their main medium being the audience itself. The artist explores voices that (en)counter miss-representation, exclusion and mainstream erasure; with a focus on Black and Trans communities. Through this approach, the artist both archives and anticipates narratives outside of the mainstream, so as to overcome the harms of tokenisation and erasure. By engaging the visitor-player through most of their installations, Brathwaite-Shirley examines how individual choices are as critical as collective, political responsibility in the context of marginalisation. Brathwaite-Shirley's work has been presented internationally, with recent exhibitions and commissions including THE SOUL STATION, LAS, Berlin (2025) The Rebirthing Room, Studio Voltaire, London (2024); I'm Not Doing This for the Likes, Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement, Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, Switzerland (2024); I CAN'T FOLLOW YOU ANYMORE, Factory International, Manchester (2023); I Can't Take This Step For You, Helsinki Biennial (2023) and Pirating Blackness, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (2021).
Dayo Lamolo
is a seasoned executive operating at the intersection of media and technology. In content business roles at the New York Times, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon Studios, she has led both commercial and creative aspects of content licensing and digital product development, with expertise in international expansion. In addition to leading Mozilla's work on human-centered technology, she is chair of the board of Open Television, an artist development and global streaming service devoted to intersectional storytelling. She began her career in journalism, as a reporter in Washington and in Nairobi. She holds a BA, JD and MBA from Yale University, and lives with her family in London.
dmstfctn (Oliver Smith and Francesco Tacchini)
is a London-based duo exploring opaque systems of power through installation, performance, film and video games. dmstfctn often invite audiences into the 'demystification' of systems by replicating and exploring them together, and into dmstfctn's own 'remystification' process by building new worlds, characters and myths atop these replicas. Since 2018, dmstfctn have performed and exhibited in venues such as Serpentine, Berghain, HWK, and festivals such as Unsound, CTM, and transmediale. Their work has been released by Mille Plateaux, Krisis Publishing and NUKFM. Most recently, their work around AI anomalies led them to collaborate with scientific institutions such as the Alan Turing Institute and the Leonardo Supercomputer.
Gabrielle Jenks
is a Curator and Creative Director who specialises in the cultural impact of digital technology. She currently holds the position of Digital Director at Manchester International Festival, the world's first festival of original, new work. Her interests are in context specific curation, the overlap of digital and physical environments and new cinematic practices. Over 15 years she has worked with numerous artists and designers in conceptualising projects including Tai Shani, Phil Collins, Rhizomatiks, Gillian Wearing and Marshmallow Laser Feast. Previously, Gabrielle was Director of Abandon Normal Devices (AND festival) and curator at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology).
Graham Hitchen
is Director of Policy for the CoSTAR Foresight Lab, and Director of the Loughborough University Policy Unit. He is also co-Director of the Creative Research and Innovation Centre (CRAIC) at Loughborough London. He is a member of the University's Digital Decarbonisation research group, and Chair of its Strategic Advisory Group. He has led research projects on creative technologies, data and policy, and the Creative Industries in India. Hitchen was part of the leadership team for UKRI's Audience of the Future and the Creative Industries Clusters Programme. He was previously the Corporate Policy Director for Arts Council England, and has worked for DCMS as well as London government.
Hannah Andrews
is the British Council's Director of Digital Innovation in the Arts, where she leads digital innovation across the organisation's global arts portfolio. Spanning research, production, and policy, Hannah's work is motivated by a belief that artists drive the development of more diverse and representative technologies, and arts-led innovation is essential to a more inspiring and sustainable future. This belief is grounded in over a decade of work at the forefront of digital innovation in the arts. Having spent five years as Creative Producer with Google's Arts & Culture Lab, and prior to this worked as an independent producer specialising in art and technology, Hannah has worked with organisations including Google Research, Google Quantum AI, MIT Media Lab, London Design Festival, the Barbican, Tate Liverpool, and the Serpentine Galleries to further arts and technology practice. Hannah has spoken on arts and technologies at the BFI, Southbank Centre, Oxford Internet Institute, and Kings College London, and has had writing on arts and AI published by European Journal and (forthcoming) Routledge. She sits on UNESCO's International Year of Quantum arts & culture sub-committee and is a member of Utrecht University's Inclusive AI Lab.
Heather Schoell
is Creative Director, AI Strategy and Events at NVIDIA, as well as the curator of the NVIDIA AI Art Gallery. The daughter of a biochemist and mathematician, Schoell combines her passion for art and science in her work as a creative in tech companies. She received a bachelor's degree in art from Yale University and came to NVIDIA after more than 13 years working in various roles in creative teams at Apple.
Ian Cheng
is an artist and founder based in New York.
Jake Elwes
is a conceptual artist, hacker, radical faerie and researcher living in London. They have been making critically engaged art exploring the aesthetics and ethics of machine learning systems since the very first generative AI models in 2016. Across projects that encompass moving-image installation, sound and performance, Jake's work finds unusual ways of demystifying, mapping and subverting technology. Their work searches for poetry and narrative in the successes and failures of digital systems. Works include deepfake drag in The Zizi Project, glitching oppressive algorithms in Machine Learning Porn and reintroducing AI generated marsh birds back into nature in CUSP. Jake's work also calls for us to challenge who builds these systems and for what purpose, and whether we, as artists and queers, can reclaim these technologies to build our own digital utopias.
James Bennett
is Director of CoSTAR National Lab, Associate Pro Vice Chancellor at Royal Holloway, University of London and Director of StoryFutures. His research work spans creative, social and technical aspects of innovation technologies and cultures (AI/XR/VR/AR). He is a strategic leader of large teams and grants, with over £85m of research and commercial R&D income won from across the UK and believes in building inclusive and collaborative work cultures and partnerships.
Jazia Hammoudi
is a curator and producer specialising in contemporary art and emerging technologies. She holds degrees in art history and museum studies from the Courtauld Institute of Art (London), and has held positions at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, the Barbican Centre, the Newark Museum, and Artnet. She got her start in XR as studio manager and researcher for Jakob Kudsk Steensen, and, in that capacity, brought projects to SXSW, and the Venice Biennale. Since joining Onassis ONX, Jazia has spearheaded exhibitions with partners including Serpentine Arts Technologies, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and has built collaborative partnerships with organisations including Lincoln Center, MIT, Centre PHI, and the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. On the side, Jazia leads art & architecture tours in her native Morocco as part of a larger effort to offer exposure to North African artists.
Jesse McKee
is Head of Digital Strategy at 221A in Vancouver, Canada, where he leads the development of the Node Library, a learning centre and prototyping lab dedicated to advancing decentralised infrastructure for the public sector. Previously, he was Lead Investigator on 221A's Blockchains and Cultural Padlocks digital strategy initiative. With over 15 years in curatorial practice, and 7 years in digital strategy, McKee focuses on building fair data economy frameworks and responsible technology systems. His work bridges cultural production with next-generation digital infrastructure, empowering communities fostering emerging approaches to data sovereignty, decentralised networks, and AI governance.
Jo Lansdowne
is Executive Producer of Pervasive Media Studio; supporting research activity, artist development and the resident community to make brilliant work.
Jo Paton Htay
is an independent Creative Producer and Project Director, working on varied and interdisciplinary projects for Art Fund, Barbican, Frieze Art Fair, Sadler's Wells, Somerset House and Southbank Centre. Jo was part of the team that created Manchester International Festival in 2007, Chief Producer at Serpentine (2019-21), and now is producing arts projects that form part of the inaugural SXSW London in 2025 with Alex Poots and Beth Greenacre.
Julia Kaganskiy
is an independent curator based in New York City. She has been working at the forefront of art and technology since 2008 as a curator, editor, and cultural strategist. Her forthcoming survey exhibition of generative art, Infinite Images: The Art of Algorithms is on view at the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio, USA) from July 12-November 30, 2025. Kaganskiy was the founding Director of NEW INC at the New Museum, the first museum-led incubator for art, design and technology. She has conceived and organised exhibitions for HEK (Basel), LAS Art Foundation (Berlin), Matadero Madrid (Madrid), 180 the Strand (London), Borusan Contemporary (Istanbul), Science Gallery (Dublin), Eyebeam (New York City) and many others. She is the co-editor of Interspecies Future: A Primer (Distanz, 2024).
Katrina Sluis
is Head of Photography & Media Arts at The Australian National University, where she leads the Computational Culture Lab in the School of Art & Design. Previously based in London, she was founding Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image and Senior Digital Curator at The Photographers' Gallery. Her research and curatorial work explore how computational systems are entangled with image cultures, institutional logics, and emerging forms of cultural production.
Ken Arnold
is Director of Medical Museion and Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen (also part of CBMR). The world-class university museum combines innovative public exhibitions and events with adventurous and collaborative research in medical humanities. Until 2022 he was also Head of Cultural Partnerships at Wellcome, the London-based charitable foundation focused on health research. Earlier, he helped lead the establishment of the Wellcome Collection and directed its first decade of programming. He regularly writes and speaks on museums and on the interactions between arts, the humanities and sciences.
Keri Elmsly
is a creative catalyst specialising in ambitious cultural projects and working with institutions globally. Her executive leadership spans the museum, art, design, and entertainment sectors, focusing on artist development and large-scale immersive experiences. As Executive Director of Programming for ACMI, Australia's national screen culture museum (2022-2025), she led curatorial, exhibitions, film, public programmes, collections, touring, and the ACMIX creative residency. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President of Sphere Studios in Las Vegas and as Chief Creative Officer of Second Story experience design studio. Keri has also executive produced projects for renowned artists including Daisy Ginsberg, Katie Paterson, Quayola, Universal Everything, and United Visual Artists.
Kieren Reed
is a Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. He was the Slade Professor and Slade Director from 2018--2023 and is the academic lead of UCL Art Futures, as well as a founding member of the Creative Education Coalition. His research encompasses sculpture and new technologies, focusing on social engagement, co-design, and site-based practice. Reed's sculptural works often function as spaces for collaboration and learning. His research challenges materials, making and authorship, and is deeply rooted in art pedagogy, policy change and socially engaged art practice.
Kristina Glushkova
leads creative and cultural sector innovation initiatives at UCL's Innovation & Enterprise directorate, with 25 years experience in policy, research, business and creative sectors. She is passionate about bringing together people, ideas and insight to create positive change. Kristina's background is in creative, digital and social innovation and business support. She has worked at Nokia, Ofcom, Storyfutures, Royal Holloway, mySociety.org, and co-founded two community enterprises focused on social impact, where she led entrepreneur network development.
Laura Herman
is currently the Head of AI Research at Adobe and the Co-Director of the Inclusive AI Lab at Utrecht University. She received her PhD from the University of Oxford's Internet Institute, where her academic research examined the impact of algorithmic curation on global visual cultures, taking an inclusive and international approach with a particular focus on the Global South.
Lauren Lee McCarthy
is an artist exploring social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. She creates performances that invite viewers to engage including to remote control her dates, to be followed by her, to welcome her in as their human smart home, and to attend a party hosted by artificial intelligence. Lauren is the creator of p5.js, an open-source creative coding platform that prioritises inclusion and modes of access, with over 5 million users worldwide. She is also a Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. Lauren's work has been recognised by Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Sundance, Eyebeam, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, and Ars Electronica, among others.
Liam Young
is a designer, director and BAFTA-nominated producer who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. Described by the BBC as 'the man designing our futures', his visionary films and speculative worlds are extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today. As a worldbuilder he visualises the cities, spaces and props of our imaginary futures for the film and television industry, and, with his own films, he has shown with platforms ranging from Channel 4, Tribeca, the Venice Biennale, the BBC and the Guardian. His works have been collected by MoMA, the Smithsonian, SF MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria amongst many others.
Maitreyi Maheshwari
is a curator and Head of Programme at FACT, Liverpool, where she is responsible for overseeing the programme of exhibitions, artists' development, residencies, learning projects and events. She has fostered an artist-centred approach that encourages critical examination of the social impacts of technology. Before this, Maitreyi was Programme Director at the Zabludowicz Collection in London. Maitreyi has also previously worked on the interaction programme at Artangel and the youth programme at Tate Modern.
Marie McPartlin
is the inaugural Director of Somerset House Studios, a space for experimentation for artists across disciplines, which she has shaped and led since 2015. The Studios supports up to 70 artists at any one time to develop new creative projects and collaborations, many of which she has commissioned for Somerset House's cultural programme and online platform, Channel. Current resident artists include Jasleen Kaur, Akinola Davies, Daisy Ginsberg, Elaine Mitchner, Jenkin Van Zyl, Sophia Al Maria, Keiken, and Xin Liu.
Matt Prewitt
is a lawyer and a prominent commentator on technology and capitalism. He is the president of RadicalxChange Foundation.
Moving Castles
is a game design studio based in Berlin. The studio’s immersive simulations and deep realities are fueled by themes of tech-driven espionage, CEO meltdowns, the innovative exploitations of late-stage capitalism, and the almost Sisyphean tragicomedies of crypto.
Natsai Audrey Chieza
is a visionary designer and thought leader pioneering new models for regenerative biophilic futures. She is the founder of Faber Futures, an award-winning London-based design agency that melds consumer biotechnology advancements with real-world applications. Chieza's innovation approach involves broad-ranging partnerships across biotech, consumer sectors, and institutions. Notable clients and commissioning bodies include Ginkgo Bioworks, adidas, the Design Museum, MIT Media Lab, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Nell Whitley
leads ambitious work in a variety of forms including live events, art installations and digital media. Her collaborations with Marshmallow Laser Feast demonstrate a unique vision for the future of creative experiences. She is a Governor of the British Film Institute.
Operator (Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti)
are an artist duo whose collaborative practice, Operator, was established in 2016. With Ti's background as a multimedia artist and HCI technologist, and Catherine's as a choreographer and performance artist, they engineer medium-agnostic output, joining environments, technology, and the body. Their exploration into privacy began with their performance installation On View (2019) and continues with their ongoing Privacy Collection. Operator has been awarded The Lumen Prize twice, and has spoken at University of Cambridge, Christie's Art+Tech Summit, Art Basel, ZKM, Francisco Carolinum Museum, Bloomberg ART+TECHNOLOGY, and MIT Open Doc Lab.
Paola Antonelli
is Senior Curator of Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA's founding Director of Research & Development. Her goal is to promote the understanding of design, until its positive influence on the world is universally acknowledged. Her work investigates design's impact on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices, and combining design, architecture, art, science, and technology. Among her most recent exhibitions are the XXII Triennale di Milano Broken Nature, Never Alone, on video games and interactive design, and Life Cycles, on the materials of contemporary design. The Instagram platform, book, and now podcast Design Emergency, which she co-founded with design critic Alice Rawsthorn, is an ongoing investigation on design's power to envision a better future for all.
Piotr Mirowski
is an AI researcher, currently Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind.
He obtained his PhD in computer science at New York University (Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2011), supervised by Prof. Yann LeCun. Piotr has been focusing on robotics and navigation-related research, on weather and climate forecasting and now on human--centered AI, leading an interdisciplinary team working on AI and Society. Piotr is also a Visiting Researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, and investigates, in his theatrical practice, the intersection of AI and human creativity.
Rival Strategy (Marta Ferreira de Sá and Benedict Singleton)
Benedict Singleton and Marta Ferreira de Sá are co-founders of Rival, a boutique firm that assembles small and highly experienced teams around problems of what they call 'contemporary strategy': situations in which existing approaches are exhausted or have become irrelevant, but the need to act remains. Rival's work spans culture, technology and the sciences, and the team brings a powerful combination of academic credentials and practical experience across those fields. The founders have held research and teaching positions at renowned institutions like MIT and the RCA, as well as emerging programmes such as The New Normal and Antikythera. This academic foundation complements their extensive history of delivering strategic insight and creative solutions to clients across many sectors. Their exploration of what AI means for healthcare has ranged from nation-state level policy development to practical implementation at globally-significant institutions. Their insights into the future trajectory of creative practices have been equally valuable, delivering foundational strategic work with some of the key players at the frontier of art and technology, and co-founding Future Art Ecosystems with Serpentine Galleries.
Salome Asega
is an artist and Director of NEW INC, a cultural incubator for art, design, and technology at the New Museum. Salome is a United States Artists Fellow and an inaugural cohort member of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab developed by Theaster Gates, Rebuild Foundation, and Prada. She is also a co-founder of POWRPLNT, a Brooklyn digital arts lab for teens. Salome has participated in residencies and fellowships with Eyebeam, The Laundromat Project, and Recess. She has exhibited at the Munch Museum, the 11th Shanghai Biennale, MoMA, HEK (Haus der Elektronischen Künste), Carnegie Library, the August Wilson Center, Knockdown Center, and elsewhere. Salome sits on the boards of the Jerome Foundation, the School for Poetic Computation, the National Performance Network and is on the Advisory Board for the Social Science Research Council's Just Tech initiative.
Sarah Ellis
is an award-winning producer currently working as Director of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) to explore new artistic initiatives and partnerships. The latest partnership for the RSC is the Audience of the Future Live Performance Demonstrator funded by Innovate UK, a consortium consisting of arts organisations, research partners, and technology companies to explore the future of performances and real-time immersive experiences. She is a regular speaker and commentator on digital arts practice, as well as an Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which helps inform academic research on the creative industries to lead to better policies for the sector. She has been appointed Chair of digital agency at The Space, established by Arts Council England and the BBC to help promote digital engagement across the arts.
Sónar and Sónar+D
stands as a global reference for electronic music and digital culture, fostering creativity and technology through a unique blend of artistic experimentation. Sónar takes place within Sónar Week, a series of events that transform Barcelona into the world capital of music, innovation, and creativity for one week each year.
Sónar+D, the innovation space within Sónar, serves as a dynamic platform for debate, exhibition, and networking. It showcases the most influential ideas in digital arts, connecting these with science, technology, and society. A meeting point for diverse communities, audiences, artists, and professionals from around the globe, Sónar+D makes Barcelona a vibrant celebration of cultural innovation, bridging the gaps between artistic practice and the rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Sputniko!
is a Japanese-British artist whose work explores intersections of technology, gender, and speculative futures through diverse media. Her projects have been presented internationally at venues including MoMA (NYC), Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cooper Hewitt, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. She was an Assistant Professor at MIT Media Lab, founding the Design Fiction Group, and currently serves as Associate Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts. Her works are part of the collections at institutions including M+ (Hong Kong), Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Japan)
Suhair Khan
is a technology entrepreneur and creative leader. She is the founder of open-ended, a platform and incubator for creative technologists working with artificial intelligence. Her work centres on impact-driven work at the intersection of design, culture and future-facing technology. In over a decade at Google and Google Arts & Culture, Suhair led initiatives which merged cutting-edge technologies with arts, design, culture, education and environmental sustainability. She is chair of the board of trustees of dance choreographer Studio Wayne McGregor, and is on advisory boards for the Design Museum, British Library, Sadler's Wells, London Design Biennale and the Hay Festival.
SYBIL
is a space for weird gaming and speculative worlding established in 2025 in Berlin. At the heart of SYBIL is a desire to bring together artists, game developers, researchers, storytellers, and those who wander at the edges of playful technologies.
Sylvan Rackham
is co-founder of Restless Egg, the incubator for artist-founders, creators who treat technology as their canvas. As a researcher, technologist, and social organiser, Sylvan's practice explores digital technologies as emergent features of collective human behaviour and considers how to build institutions that provide the conditions for creating aspirational technological futures. Sylvan has been a fellow at Transformations of the Human, a resident at Medialab Matadero, a singer with London Contemporary Voices, and holds degrees in Electronic Engineering and Tech Policy from the University of Cambridge.
Tadeo Lopez-Sendon
is a cultural programmer and creative director specialising in digital technologies, who is currently Chief Executive of Abandon Normal Devices and a Longplayer trustee. Until 2019, Tadeo was Co-Director of Music Hackspace, where he built a music-maker community during a three-year residency at Somerset House Studios. In 2020, he founded the curatorial and producing agency Mutant Promise, and, in 2022, he co-curated Grow FM for Chiswick House and Gardens. Tadeo is an original artist member for Cave of Sounds, nominated for the Ars Electronica S+T+ARTS Prize (2019). Tadeo has developed digital programmes with organisations including National Gallery, Furtherfield, and Artangel.
Tao-Tao Chang
is Associate Director for Programmes at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Tao leads the strategic development of AHRC's research infrastructure programme, which invests in the spaces, places, platforms and people that ensure research can thrive, are appropriately resourced and fit for purpose. Tao joined AHRC in 2019 as Head of Infrastructure, taking up her current role in November 2022. Professionally, her background is in international partnerships and the museum sector. From 2005 to 2010 she was Head of the International Office at the University of Cambridge. This was followed by a stint as International Development Officer at the Fitzwilliam Museum, after which she joined the Victoria and Albert Museum as Research Grants Manager.
Tarek E. Virani
is Associate Professor of Creative Industries at the School of Arts - College of Arts, Technology and Environment (CATE). His research interests in the creative industries includes: Organisational resilience, urban and cultural policy, creative and cultural ecosystems, post-creative cities, culture-led regeneration and cultural districts, creative and cultural hubs and international dimensions of creative and cultural work and policy.
Thangam Debbonaire
is a Labour Member of the House of Lords and was MP for Bristol West 2015- 2024. She runs Red Frock Ltd., providing assistance to businesses and arts and culture organisations, clients include Southbank Centre, the Opera network UK and The Art Fund. She served in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Thangam's current work includes arts policy, international cultural partnerships and diplomacy, and issues related to copyright and AI. She chairs Labour Women's Network and the Parthenon Project and sits on the boards of Sadler's Wells and LabourList. Before serving in Parliament Thangam worked for 25 years in gender equality and domestic violence prevention, nationally and internationally.
Tom Crick
is Professor of Digital Policy at Swansea University and Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK Government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport. His interdisciplinary interests sit at the research-policy-practice interface, identifying and addressing domain problems with broad digital, data-driven and computational themes, and especially focusing on the impact on people, communities, heritage and culture. He has led the major science and technology curriculum reforms in Wales over the past 10+ years, and has recently driven the development of Swansea University's civic mission strategy. Alongside his academic work, Tom has held senior advisory roles with the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales, Ofcom, Nesta, British Science Association, and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, as well as non-executive roles in the utilities, engineering/manufacturing, and health and social care sectors.
Tonya Nelson
is Executive Director, Enterprise & Innovation at Arts Council England. She was formerly London Area Director where she oversaw a portfolio of over 250 London-based arts organisations. She joined the Arts Council when she was appointed to be the first Director of Arts Technology and Innovation in 2019. Tonya was seconded to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2017 where she co-authored the policy report Culture is Digital. She sits on the board of Trustees of the National Gallery and Royal Collection Trust, which looks after the Royal Collection and manages the public opening of the official residences of His Majesty The King. She also advises on cultural projects around the world as a Senior Associate at AEA Consulting. She was formerly Chair of the International Council of Museums (UK), Bomb Factory Art Foundation and a member of Christie's Art World Professional Advisory Group. She worked for University College London for nine years, rising to the level of Director of Museums and Cultural Programmes. Prior to entering the cultural sector, she was a barrister and management consultant in Washington, DC, where she grew up.
Trust
is a network of utopian conspirators, a sandbox for creative, technical and critical projects, and a site of experimentation for new ways of learning together.
Wendi Yan
is an artist, technologist and writer examining metamorphoses of the scientific self. She crafts alternative fictions of science and its history through CGI films, games, and archival displays of sculptural objects. Yan received an A.B. in History of Science from Princeton University and was an inaugural Steve Jobs Archive Fellow. She is a NEW INC Y11 member in Creative Science, and a finalist for the 6th Hyundai VH Award - Asia's leading media art award.