ArtScience Soiree: Collaboration Across Disciplines

Dr. Luke Hespanhol is a media artist, researcher, lecturer, interaction designer and software developer based in Sydney, Australia.

His practice investigates the potential of media art to create engaging experiences that lead to reflection on the relationship between individuals and the immediate environment around them. He has explored these possibilities of public expression through the development of interactive media installations for academic research, galleries and public art festivals, including multiple editions of Vivid Sydney.

Luke holds a PhD from the Design Lab, University of Sydney, researching interactive media architecture and the user-centred design of hybrid urban environments.

He is a former guest researcher at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication at Aarhus University, Denmark, and resident at the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria. Luke is a lecturer in Computational Design at UNSW Australia and Co-Chair for both Workshops and the Student Competition at the Media Architecture Biennale 2016.

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ArtScience Soiree: Collaboration Across Disciplines

Redesigning Urban Inventions: City As A Service
 

Dr. Lisa Harvey-Smith is an award-winning astronomer at the CSIRO and the Project Scientist for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope. Her research tackles diverse topics from the birth and death of stars to weighing black holes in the centres of galaxies.  

Lisa leads a team of scientists at the Australia Telescope National Facility and enjoys sharing her passion for science with audiences across Australia. Last  year she introduced science superstars Buzz Aldrin and Neil DeGrasse Tyson at sold-out shows at venues in Sydney and Melbourne. In her spare time, she runs ultra-marathons, including multi-day races. 

Michael Kasumovic is an evolutionary biologist interested in understanding how animals navigate an uncertain world. Much of his research manipulates the social environment to understand how interacting with others helps animals make decisions about how to grow and act, and with whom to mate.

He recently started using video games to explore similar questions in humans. Michael's research suggests that humans are not that different from the rest of the animals in the world as it seems, that everything really does revolve around sex. 

Dr Astrid Zeman is both a musician and a computational neuroscientist, programming artificial neural networks by day and performing live vocal looping by night. Last year she completed her PhD thesis on Computational Modelling of Visual Illusions, became a National finalist for the Famelab science communication competition, recorded and released her debut EP and was selected for Listen Record’s debut compilation album of underground Aussie female and transgender artists.

She’s competed in international robotics competitions, worked at the CSIRO in artificial intelligence and this year she launched and co-directed the EAROPUND Women’s Music Festival to promote female and transgender musicians.