Mika Hannula is writer, curator, critic and lecturer, who got his Ph.D. in Political Science, focused on narrative identities and Aristotelian Ethics. Born in Finland, lives in Berlin & in Naantali (South of South of Finland). Director of the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki 2000-2005, professor for artistic research at the University of Gothenburg, 2007-2014. Latest publication: Embrace – Analog Experience, the Question of Aesthetics, and the Idea of Repeating Forwards with the Practice of Painting.

Alice Koubová is a researcher at Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her work focuses on the issues of performance, performativity, expressivity, (inter)corporeality, identity, sociality, ethics, and methodology in relation to the philosophy of performance, artistic research, and applied philosophy. She is a longtime lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and other art schools in the Czech Republic and abroad. She is a co-editor of the collective monograph Artistic Research: Is There Some Method? (NAMU, 2017).

David Kořínek focuses his work on electronic media and digital visual culture. He oversaw the Media Laboratory at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University and since 2005 he has been the head of its Digital Media Specialization.  In collaboration with the Academic Research Center of the Academy of Fine Arts and the E-area group, he has contributed to several developmental programs and research projects. He is a member of the E-area collective and has been a member of the Rafani art collective since 2006. Together with Federico Díaz he led the Supermedia studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague (UMPRUM). Currently he leads the Center of Audiovisual Studies at FAMU.

Magda Stanová is an artist and researcher interested in analyses of creative processes and perception of art, theory of photography, as well as urban development and cartography especially from the point of view of a pedestrian. Her research-based practice results in artistic forms like visual essays and lecture-like events. She authored two books Algorithms in Art (2016) and W cieniu fotografii (2008) and coauthored the publication The Pedestrian’s Venice (2017). She holds an MFA in new genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied as a Fulbright scholar, and a PhD in fine arts from AVU.

Michal Rataj is a composer, performer, and sound designer. He is an author of mainly electro-acoustic and instrumental music and since 2008 has been performing solo in sound performances in Europe as well as the United States. He teaches composition and electro-acoustic music at the Department of Composition of HAMU and at NYU Prague. As a stipend recipient of the Fulbright Foundation he conducted research at the Center for New Music and Sound Technology at the University of Berkeley in California, and also completed study abroad programs in London and Berlin.

Marquard Smith is Programme Leader of the MA Museums & Galleries in Education at UCL, London, and Professor of Artistic Research at Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania. Marq is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visual Culture, a Board member of Arts Catalyst, and an Advisory Group Member of Inclusive Practice at The Wellcome Collection. As a curator, his recent exhibitions include ‘How to Construct a Time Machine’ (MK Gallery, England), ‘Solitary Pleasures’ (Freud Museum, London), and ‘Do the Right Thing’ (Titanikas Gallery, Vilnius). As a writer, Marq has published over twenty books, edited collections, and themed issues of refereed journals on arts education, research-as-praxis, and the archival impulse, as well as on the art, visual, material, and immaterial culture of ‘the human’ in capitalist modernity. Recent publications include Research: Practitioner | Curator | Educatorand Decolonising: The Curriculum, the Museum, and the Mind.

Mika Elo is professor of artistic research and the head of the doctoral program in fine arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki. The areas of his research interest include photography theory, media aesthetics and epistemology of artistic research. He is participating in the discussions in these areas in the capacity of visual artist, educator, curator and researcher.

Andrea Průchová Hrůzová is a researcher and university lecturer. She is a founder of the visual research platform Fresh Eye and collaborates with the Czech Academy of Sciences, Charles University and the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. She has published on the intersections of visual culture and memory studies and visual representation of marginalised groups (European Journal of Cultural Studies, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Publishing House). She has translated John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, co-translated W. J. T. Mitchell’s Picture Theory and Nicholas Mirzoeff’s How to See the World to Czech. She is a co-author of the artistic book We Have Never Been Earth (Visual Studies Workshop Press).

Jan Jiřík is the editor of ArteActa academic journal. As a specialized editor, he works together with a number of publishers (Academic, IDU, NAMU). He lectures at Faculty of Theatre of AMU in Prague. He is a member of the Reclaimed Avant-Gardeinternational research team. He has taken part as a dramaturg in Palm Off Fest, an international gathering of Central European theatres.

Filip Suchomel is an art historian and Japanologist currently working as vice-rector for development, PR, science, and research at AMU in Prague. In his academic work he is concerned with the research of Japanese and Chinese art with a special focus on questions of cultural exchange between the East and West. He has long been involved in the study of collections of Japanese and Chinese art from Czech regional museums, as well as collections found in castles and châteaux.