TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

Roy Ascott is an artist and theorist, who has focused on the theoretical and practical application of cybernetics and telematics in art. He coined the concept of Technoetics; a field that brings together art, science, technology and consciousness. He has exhibited and taught since the early 1960s. Roy Ascott, is currently DeTao Master of Technoetic Arts at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. in Shanghai, and founding president of the former Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK. He has been President of Ontario College of Art, Toronto; Vice- President of San Francisco Art Institute, California; Professor Communications Theory at University of Applied Arts Vienna; Head of Fine Art, Minneapolis College of Art, Visiting Professor at UCLA, and creator of the ‘Groundcourse’ at Ealing School of Art in London. He has an honorary Doctorate, Ionian University, and is the recipient of the first Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award for Visionary Pioneers of Media Art (2014). His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate Gallery, and British Arts Council.

He has shown in the Biennales of Venice, and Shanghai, and in major shows in Europe, Asia and South America. His research is widely presented in journals and conferences (US, Europe, Asia, Australia). He is the Founding Editor of Technoetic Arts (Intellect) and an Honorary Editor of Leonardo (MIT Press).

Andreas Floros was born in Drama, Greece in 1973. In 1996 he received his engineering degree from the department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Patras, and in 2001 his Ph.D. degree from the same department. His research was mainly focused on digital audio signal processing and conversion techniques for all-digital power amplification methods. He was also involved in research in the area of acoustics. In 2001, he joined the semiconductors industry, where he worked in projects in the area of digital audio delivery over PANs and WLANs, Quality-of-Service, mesh networking, wireless VoIP technologies and lately with audio encoding and compression implementations in embedded processors. During 2003 - 2005 he was a member of a number of IEEE Tasks Groups (such as the 802.11e, .11k and .11s) with voting rights. For a period of three years (2005 - 2008), he was an adjunct professor at the department of informatics, Ionian University. During this period of time he also taught at the postgraduate (MSc) degree "Arts and Technologies of Sound" organized by the dept. of Music Studies, Ionian University. On January 2008, he was appointed in the position of Assistant Professor at the department of Audiovisual Arts, Ionian University. Today, he serves as Professor of Audio Technology and Electroacoustics and as the Rector of the Ionian University.  

Kathy High is an interdisciplinary artist / educator who collaborates with scientists and activists, and considers living systems, animal sentience, and ethical dilemmas of biotechnology and medical industries. She is Professor of Video and New Media in the Arts department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, and is director of BioArt and Technology Laboratory, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. She is a supporter of community DIY science and ecological art practices and Project Coordinator for the NATURE Lab Urban Environmental Education Center with The Sanctuary for Independent Media where she is a board member and co-founder. She is committed to queer and feminist approaches to reshaping ecological bio-science research and learning-by-doing, and to collaborative action. Among many honors, she is recipient of awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. Her artworks have been shown at documenta 13 (Germany), Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, (NYC), UCLA (Los Angeles), Science Gallery (Dublin), NGBK (Berlin), Festival Transitio_MX (Mexico), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Para-site Gallery (Hong Kong), Esther Klein Gallery, (Philadelphia), Medical Museum (Copenhagen). She has had residencies with SymbioticA, University of Western Australia, Finnish Society of Bioart, Coalesce, University of Buffalo, Djerassi Scientific Delirium Madness. www.kathyhigh.com

Dalila Honorato, Ph.D, is the starter of the conference "Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art & Science". She is a Professor in Aesthetics and Visual Semiotics at the Ionian University, Greece. where she is also the Director of the Interactive Arts Lab and the Master of Research in Hybrid Arts. A collaborator at the Center of Philosophy of Sciences - University of Lisbon, her research focus is on embodiment, monstrosity, the uncanny and the acrobatic balance between phobia and paraphilia.

Photo credits: Gina Rottweiler

Gunalan Nadarajan, an art theorist and curator working at the intersections of art, science and technology, is Dean Emeritus and Professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. He is active in the development of media arts internationally and has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Inter Society for Electronic Art, is on the Advisory Boards of the Database of Virtual Art (Austria), Cellsbutton Festival (Indonesia), the New Media Caucus and was an advisor on creative programs of digital culture to the UNESCO and the Smithsonian Institution. He served on the International Advisory Board of the ArtScience Museum in Singapore from 2014-22. He co-founded and continues to work on a National Science Foundation funded Network for Science Engineering, Art and Design to develop and support a national network for collaborative research, education and creative practice between sciences, engineering, arts and design. He also served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (USA) committee and co-authored the report, Branches from the Same Tree: The Integration of the Humanities and Arts in Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Higher Education.

Dr Melentie Pandilovski is a Phenomenologist, Gallery Director, Curator, Art Historian. He has curated more than 200 exhibitions and organized numerous symposia, conferences, and workshops in Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, such as: “Contestable Bodies” by STELARC (2018), the "inaugural International Limestone Coast Video Art Festival" (2018), "The Rise of Bio-Society" (2017), “SEAFair” (Skopje Electronic Art Fair 1997 – 2011); "Age of Catastrophe" (2015), "Toxicity" (2013-14), “Marshall McLuhan & Vilém Flusser Communication & Aesthetics Theories Revisited” (2012); “Biotech Art – Revisited” (2009), etc. His theoretical research deals with examining links between art, culture, technology, individual identity, and consciousness. Melentie has worked on numerous projects with the “Syndicate” – international network. His artistic projects include the Internet project “Welcome Back to the Empire” (1996-7, and 2011), the solo exhibition “TV Experiment” in Skopje, North Macedonia, in 1987, and a project with-in “Tik- Tak –Tok”, an international inter-disciplinary collaboration consisting of two exhibitions of artists’ clocks and time machines, in Dundee (Scotland) and Skopje (North Macedonia) in 2000 and 2002. Currently, he is Vice President at AICA Macedonia (MK), Producer/Consultant at JOLT Arts in Melbourne (AU), and Advisor at the Society for Phenomenology and Media.

Stelarc is an Australian Performance Artist. His projects and performances explore alternate anatomical architectures, interrogating issues of embodiment, agency, identity and the post-human. Between 1973-1975 he made 3 films of the inside of his body. Between 1976-1988 he completed 27 body suspensions with insertions into his skin. He has performed with a Third Hand, a Stomach Sculpture and Exoskeleton, a 6-legged walking robot.  Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and Parasite are internet performances that explore remote and involuntary choreography via a muscle stimulation system. He is surgically constructing and stem-cell growing an ear on his arm that will be electronically augmented and internet enabled. In 1996 he was made an Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and in 2002 was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by Monash University, Melbourne. In 2010 he was awarded the Ars Electronica Hybrid Arts Prize. In 2015 he received the Australia Council’s Emerging and Experimental Arts Award. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Ionian University, Corfu. From 2013-2018, Stelarc was a Distinguished Research Fellow, Curtin University, Perth. His artwork is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne. www.stelarc.org

Photo credits: Nicholas Walton-Healey.

Polona Tratnik, PhD in Philosophy, is senior researcher at the Institute IRRIS for Research, Development, and Strategies of Society, Culture, and Environment, and a full Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California Santa Cruz and guest professor at the same university, as well as at the Capital Normal University in Bejing, China, at Helsinki TAIK, Finland, and at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is the president of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics and an executive committee member of the International Association of Aesthetics. She is also a pioneering biotechnological artist. Her single-author monographs include Art as Capital: The Intersection of Science, Technology and the Arts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021); Umetnost u savremenosti (Orion, 2018); Conquest of Body: Biopower with Biotechnology (Springer, 2017); Hacer-vivir más allá del cuerpo y del medio (Herder, 2013); In Vitro. Živo onstran telesa in umetnosti (Horizonti, 2009); Konec umetnosti: od Hegla k Dantu—genealogija modernega diskurza (Annales, 2008).

Artist and researcher, working with machines, mycelium and media art, Eugénie Desmedt studied at the University of Warwick, the University of Vienna, the University for Applied Arts Vienna and the Johannes Kepler Universität. Currently pursuing a PhD through the Art x Science School for Transformation between the Weibel Institute in Vienna and the LIT Robopsychology Lab in Linz, Eugénie’s work has been shown in galleries, conferences, backyards, festivals, abandoned houses, flats of friends, former caserns.

Photo credit: Nina Danninger

Magdalena Samonigg's research lies at the intersection of art and science. She explores the potential of games as a medium for engaging with the climate crisis and interactive science communication. Her current research focuses on playful simulations of forests and their interaction with the climate crisis. Since 2026, Magdalena has been a university assistant and pre-doctoral researcher at the Art x Science School for Transformation run by Johannes Kepler University Linz and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Photo credits: Nina Danninger

Crossing critical disability studies with sociology and artistic research, Leo explores the intersections of technology, access, aesthetics, and disability. As a teacher, she focuses on facilitating students’ qualitative projects and occupational orientation processes. Leo holds degrees in Sociology (University of Vienna), Social and Human Ecology (Boku Vienna), and Visual Communication + Change (Linnaeus University Kalmar), and has accompanied citizen science projects as an artistic researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Currently, she is a University Assistant and pre-doctoral researcher at the Art x Science School for Transformation at Johannes Kepler University Linz and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Photo credits: Marianna Mondelos

Carolina Páez Vélez is a chemist and microbiologist currently finishing her studies on the Master of Art and Science in the University of Applied Arts. In her practice, Carolina explores new perspectives to analyze the role of humans in relation to the land they inhabit. Due to her passion for soils, she is currently mapping the soils of Vienna, analyzing chemical and physical variables, the microorganisms that inhabit them and the history that these soils hold. She actively combines her background in natural sciences, her interest in geopolitics and artistic research to delve into the world of seeds, soils and compost, with the aim of envisioning different ways to relate with the land and all the more-than-human beings that cohabit it with us. As part of the In-Situ Production Team for TTT2027 Vienna, Carolina is responsible for the coordination of volunteers.

Photo credits: Carolina Páez Vélez

Phin Anibal is a behavioral ecologist and visual artist mainly working in sculpture. His more recent works have explored intersections of art and wildlife morphology, as well as the creation of artwork informed through the behaviors of non-human animals. A current student of Die Angewante’s Masters in Art and Science, he previously completed an interdisciplinary Masters in Human Animal Interaction at the Messerli Research Institute of the VetMedUni, Vienna. He holds both a BA (Studio art, with a concentration in drawing) and a BSc (Behavioral Ecology) from the Honors College of the University of New Hampshire, USA. With previous research ranging from avian cognition studies to marine ecology surveys, as well as ongoing naturalist work with the Bruce Museum Seaside Center of Connecticut, USA, he began combining art practice with science while conducting fieldwork. Other artistic research areas include representation and identity, impact on/connection to environment, and experimental use of natural materials.

Photo credit: Hanna Hofmann

Zahra Mirza is an artist and researcher interested in bringing art into conversation with other disciplines, exploring shared questions around the challenges shaping our world. She is based at the Department of Art and Space | Spatial Strategies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she has also led ceramics workshops focused on sustainable practices and material sourcing. She studied Sculpture and Fine Arts (Pakistan) and Cross-Disciplinary Strategies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Austria). She teaches ceramics at Happylab Makerspace, runs the online platform Artversation, and is part of the editorial board of IEDAs: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Practices in Art & Design. Her research takes an intersectional approach to the complex and often messy systems that shape everyday life, bringing together different disciplines and ways of thinking. Alongside ceramics, where materiality, climate and health are key concepts within her practice, she has been researching bdelloid rotifers, microscopic freshwater invertebrates known for their resilience, and what their ability to survive might offer to thinking about agency within climate activism. She is also interested in how our sense of self is shaped by our relationships with machines, technology, and the web. In her current artistic research on voice, she works with her own voice and its AI-cloned versions, exploring the differences between human hesitation and machine fluency, and how the two might coexist without being seen as competitors.

Photo credits: eSeL.at – Joanna Pianka

Graduate of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of the Ionian University, Ioanna Logaki, MA, is responsible for the creation of all visual concepts related to the conference series identity and publications: logo, banners, covers, book of abstracts, program and proceedings.

Aristeidis (Aris) Lamprogeorgos was born in Trikala of Thessaly, Greece. He studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras but the arts and especially painting and graphic design were always a big part of his life and professional career. He is now seeking to combine his passion for technology and the arts as a PhD candidate at the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University through his research on the aesthetics of the digital world in website design.

Minas Pergantis is a diplomate of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Polytechnic School of the University of Patras. He has multiple years of work experience in the private sector as a Web application programmer and Website developer.

He successfully completed the doctoral program of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of the Ionian University and was awarded a PhD on July of 2023. His dissertation was titled "Art search online: analysis of user behaviour and search technologies"

Since September 2023 he is an active postdoctoral researcher of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts. His post doctoral research is titled "Evaluation and Optimization of User Experience in Online Digital Art Repositories".

Researcher who collaborates with the Laboratory of New Technologies of the Department of Communication and Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and with the Interactive Arts Lab of the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University, Greece.
She studied Political Science and History (Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University, Greece) and she holds an MSc in Crime Science, Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College of London [UCL].
In recent years, she has been working for MEDIA42 (Communication and Digital Media of Eastern Mediterranean P.C.) as a Communication Manager.