Christopher Bauder  is the creative director of the design studio Whitevoid, which he founded immediately after finishing his studies at Berlin University of the Arts. He works worldwide as a light and media artist and is also the founder and managing director of the innovative lighting technology manufacturer Kinetic Lights.  Bauder is best known for his large scale spacial light art installations.

Kiira Benzing is a multimedia director, founder of Double Eye Studios based in New York. She is a director crossing the mediums of theater, hybrid cinema and virtual reality and currently working with live actors performing in social VR with the open software platform High Fidelity and she writes for the Medium blog “Alive in Plasticland”. Her most recent project Runnin, is an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2019.

Toby Coffey established the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio in 2016. The Studio has had its portfolio of projects shown at the Venice, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, National Theatre, The Young Vic, MoMA and TATE Modern. The Studio’s work ranges from VR music videos, immersive exhibtions and VR performances with interactions between the audience and live performer. At VRHAM!, Toby has been mentor for the VR project Inhibition by Zoe Diakaki and Marina Mersiadou.

Mat Collishaw  is a key figure in the generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmiths’ College in the late 1980s. His visual language embraces diverse media. The beauty of Collishaw’s work is compelling – seductive, captivating, hypnotic – yet repelling as we perceive the darker fantasies within. Something between beautiful and abject. At VRHAM! 2021 he will present his latest project Bedlam in a keynote.

Gustav Gomes  is a brazilian artist, dancer and choreographer based in Cologne, Germany. As a visual artist he is exposing photographic work, installation and video art in a number of galleries. At VRHAM! Gustavo will present his current project Votary, which he has continued developing at Institut für theatrale Zukunfstforschung (ITZ) at Tübingen together with his mentor Richard Siegal as part of the VRHAM! FORWARD residencies.

Ali Hossaini’s expertise spans art, science and engineering. A commitment to preserving life, and to celebrating life’s diversity, motivates his interdisciplinary work. He is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Engineering at King’s College London. He is also a Fellow of the National Gallery, co-director of National Gallery X and a trustee of the Young Vic theatre. Since 2018 he has been working with security think tank RUSI on the safety of AI.

Tupac Martir is an Artist and Founder of Satore Studio in London. He’s a multimedia artist whose work spans the fields of technology, lighting, projection and video, sound design, music, and composition, as well as choreography and costumes. Vogue has described him as “the visual designer and creative director behind some of the most important events in the world”.

Robin McNicholas is Co-founder and Director of the award-winning creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) in London and has directed a myriad of immersive experiences, large-scale installations and live performances. Exploring new sensory perspectives that challenge our relationship to the world around us plays a key role in Robin and the team at MLF’s work.

Marina Mesiadou studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and also worked as an architect in an Athens based architectural practice. Marina is interested in exploring ways of integrating new technologies into performance and theatrical space. Marina, together with Zoe Diakaki, will present their joint project Inhibition, which they developed together with their mentor Tobey Coffey as part of the VRHAM! FORWARD residencies.

Ilja Mirsky is dramaturg at the Institut für theatrale Zukunftsforschung (ITZ) in Tübingen and PhD candidate at the University of Tuebingen and Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Ilja is lecturer on artificial intelligence, theater and digital dramaturgy with  a strong focus on VR/AR, AI and performance Art.

Co-director at Minky Productions, Julien Planté is an experienced Producer and high caliber Head of Programmes, with a strong track record in commissioning, producing and curating Live Events, TV and online content. Currently working on Bedlam, an Extended Reality theatre experience by Mat Collishaw, that he will introduce in a Keynote.

Based in Marseille, Mathieu Pradat inscribes his practice within the growing interaction between real and virtual worlds, seen as new territories for stories bearing knowledge, sensations and emotions. He explores cinema and various immersive interactive narrative forms. His works (The Roaming, Proxima, The Dog) have been selected and awarded throughout the world. Mathieu Pradat is CEO of La prairie productions. He teaches immersive narrative in various universities.

András Siebold was hired as a dramaturge at Theater Basel and subsequently for four years at the State Opera Unter den Linden Berlin. In 2007 he was appointed as head of programming at Kampnagel Hamburg by Artistic Director Amelie Deuflhard. Since 2013 he is Artistic Director of the International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Hamburg.

Richard Siegal  is an American dancer and choreographer. For his pieces, Siegal has cooperated with people from different fields such as architecture, design and composing. In 2016, Siegal founded the touring company Ballet of Difference^] together with ecotopia dance productions, missioned with creating new pertinence to ballet in the 21st century.

Chiaki Soma has produced or curated global projects that transect categories of theater, contemporary art, and community-engaged art. She has been the General Producer of Toyooka Theater Festival 2021, the Curator of Aichi Triennale 2022 and Artistic Director of  Theatre Commons Festival.

Melanie Stein is a journalist, psychologist, producer and presenter covering politics, innovation and science. She is an editor and presenter of the YouTube show Diskuthek, a political talk show addressing young adults. After finishing her “Volontariat” at NDR, she worked for the media magazine Zapp as well as for the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. Melanie is the founder and CEO of Wir sind der Osten, an initiative giving visibility to progressives citizens from Eastern Germany.

Daniel Strutt is a lecturer in the department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, He and his team have developed a framework for the streaming of motion capture data, permitting dancers to dance together but remotely, and within virtual spaces.

Susanne Thurow is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales’ iCinema Centre, one of Australia’s foremost hubs for applied interactive immersive visualization, and a Chief Investigator on the iDesign research project. Since 2014, she has been co-developing immersive visualisation projects with key collaboration partners.