Introducing the LDR Panelists

Stephen Wilson is a San Francisco author, artist and professor who explores the cultural implications of new technologies. His interactive installations and performances have been shown internationally, both in galleries and at SIGGRAPH, CHI, NCGA, Ars Electronica and V2 art shows. His computer-mediated artworks probe such issues as the World Wide Web and telecommunications; artificial intelligence and robotics; hypermedia and the structure of information; GPS and the sense of place; synthetic voice; and biological and environmental sensing. Wilson has won the Prize of Distinction in Ars Electronica's international competitions for interactive art and several honorary mentions. He is head of the Conceptual/Information Arts program at San Francisco State University. He was selected as artist-in-residence at Xerox PARC and NTT Research labs. He has been a principal investigator in National Science Foundation research projects to investigate the relationship of new technologies to education, and his publications include four books, including Using Computers to Create Art (Prentice Hall, 1986), Multimedia Design with HyperCard (Prentice Hall, 1991) and World Wide Design Guide (Hayden, 1995), which promotes an experimental, culturally informed approach to Web design. His latest book, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (MIT Press, 2001), surveys artists, theorists and researchers working in advanced inquiries in fields such as biology, medicine, physics, artificial life, telepresence, body sensors, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and information systems. E-mail: <swilson@sfsu.edu>. Web site: <http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/>.

Paul Hertz teaches and develops networked multimedia projects at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. From 1971 to 1983 he lived in Spain, where he exhibited his drawings, paintings and musical and theatrical compositions, notably in the XVIII International Theater Festival of Sitges, the Universitat Nova in Barcelona, and various editions of the Joan Miró International Drawing Competition. In 1994, with a host of other artists and engineers, he collaborated with Antonio Muntadas in creating The File Room, one of the first on-line artworks. As a visiting artist at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, in 1996, he exhibited his suite of digital images, Deadpan, or the Holy Toast, and chaired a panel on "The Colonization of Cyberspace," a topic explored by seven artists in The Homestead/La Finca, a Web installation he designed and curated. He has exhibited his work at the Artemisia Gallery, Chicago; the Chicago Cultural Center; ISEA95; ISEA9; and SIGGRAPH99, where he was also a panelist for "Algorithmics and Patterns from Life." For Chicago's Project Millennium he curated a show of new media art, Second Nature, at the Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art. His essay on the poetics of intermedia, "Synesthetic Art—An Imaginary Number?" was published in the "Synesthesia and Intersenses" section of Leonardo, Volume 32, No. 5 (1999). Hertz is currently working on a multimedia performance work, Fool's Paradise, a collaborative effort funded by a grant from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts at Northwestern University. E-mail: <paul-hertz@nwu.edu>.

Kevin Murray is Artistic Director of Craft Victoria and national editor for Art Monthly Online. He has curated a number of exhibitions that have toured nationally, including "Symmetry: Crafts Meet Kindred Trades and Professions," "How Say You," "Turn the Soil: What If Australia Had Been Colonised by Someone Else?," "Water Medicine: Precious Works for an Arid Continent" and "Loom." He is the curator of the interactive program for the Melbourne Film Festival. In addition to articles for art publications, he also writes features for The Age newspaper and produces radio programs for the Australia Broadcasting Corp. Murray is currently writing Neverland: The Lost Continent of Australia for Pluto Press. He is interested in the material/digital divide, insects, the global South, and speculative art. Most of his exhibitions and articles are on-line at <http://www.kitezh.com>. Kevin Murray lives in Brunswick, Melbourne. E-mail: <kmurray@mira.net>.