*people*

Ami Wolf : amaret.net

Ophra Wolf

Ophra is a performance artist whose work explores the body as a tool for conscious expression of internal states. She is particularly interested in the use of technology to reveal physical patterns of interaction and communication. Ophra received her BA from UC Berkeley, where she graduated suma cum laude in Sociology and Dance (1998), and her MA in Performance from Goldsmiths College (2002, Distinction). She has trained intensively in a range of performance techniques, from contemporary dance to devised theatre, and specializes in movement improvisation.

Between 1998 and 2001 she performed, choreographed and taught for one of Israel’s premier performance troupes, Rina Sheinfeld Dance Theatre, as well as touring her own solo pieces throughout Israel. In London she has performed with Ground Level Theatre Company and Company 333, and was part of a Chisenhale Artist Residency group. As artistic director of Pursue the Pulse, she has led projects at STEIM (Amsterdam) and Goldsmiths College (London) which integrate interactive technology into performance. She recently collaborated on an interactive performance for the Institute for Psychoacoustic & Electronic Music (IPEM, Gent), and took part in the Re-Approaching new Media Workshop (ram4, Helsinki). Ophra is deeply impassioned about making work that is both humorous and socially critical, and believes collaboration is the key to life.

René Mogensen

René was the composer in residence at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College , California, in October 1999, where his piece Spring Decomposition was premiered. His electroacoustic work Autumn Apparition was presented in the 5th Computer Music Festival in Seoul, Korea, in December, 1998, and was also featured on public radio in Denmark as well as on various radio programs around the US during the past couple of years.

René has been a visiting composer at the Danish Institute for Electroacoustic Music (DIEM) often during recent years, and has also done organisational and technical work for the Institute, including work on the MIX.01 and MIX.02 festivals of electroacoustic music. In collaboration with the DIEM, a concert of the complete Five Seasons in surround sound was presented at the Planetarium at the Steno Museum in Århus, March 22nd 2001. The Institute also gave technical support to solo concerts by Mogensen at Aal Church, the Westjutland Artmuseum, Kunstcentret Silkeborg Bad, and Theatret Sthyr og Kjær in Copenhagen during 2001.

During the Summers of 1996 and 1997 , he was the composer and performer in residence in New York University's graduate music program in Pisa , Italy, where several of his works were premiered in concerts as part of the Strada Facendo Performing Arts Festival.

He has created scores for modern dance , including the hour-long piece Waves produced by the Klixbüll Dance Co. of New York, which was premiered in New York City in 1996 and later toured in Denmark and Poland. Other works have been performed with dance under the direction of Dr. Esther Lamneck and Douglas Dunn at NYU. Several new works such Heaven or Cell and War Game have been premiered recently in productions with New York City based choreographer Renata Celichowska.

René's chamber music and jazz works have been performed by various ensembles both in the US and abroad. The Ensemble Rosario, in Argentina, has performed Three Songs Without Words for wind quintet in their concert series. Esbjerg Ensemble in Denmark has performed René's work for chamber orchestra Minutes and Sunset and Thought in Five Parts for clarinet and percussion.

René has presented an annual concert of new works at the Danish Contemporary Art Gallery concert series in New York City (1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001); including premieres of Infinity Parody One for trio, Study for Saxophone and other works. An annual summer concert series now in its tenth year has been presented by René at the Chateau LaFayette Reneau in Hector, New York, including numerous original works for small jazz ensembles (1992-2000).

René has performed, and his works have been presented at diverse venues in New York, ranging from Birdland, the Knitting Factory, and the Danish Contemporary Art Gallery, to the Loeb Theater at NYU, and St. Marks Church in the East Village of Manhattan, as well as at festivals and wineries in Upstate New York.

Please see http://www.geocities.com/renemogensen/index.html for full details.
Rene can be contacted by email at rene@pursuethepulse.org

Shawn Van Every

Shawn is a media artist and programmer interested in the development of tools for media making and distribution. He fantasizes about creating a truly democratic media where everyone is a participant. Currently he is a masters candidate, studying at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Previous to ITP, Shawn has worked on the development of various projects revolving around streaming media, radio and interactive television. He holds a BA in Media Studies with a concentration on Film from SUNY Buffalo.

Mark Argo

Mark Argo is new media artist, musician and technophile. He has been exploring the dynamic representation of information and the creation of art through technology since 1998. This has taken the form of screen based compositions and animations; musical instruments and sound installations; and physical computing objects.

Mark is currently completing studies for a Masters Degree at New York University’s prestigious Interactive Telecommunications Program. There he has collaborated with Ahmi Wolf on several projects, including 'The Bass-Station' a portable, wireless network, which was exhibited at SIGGRAPH 2003 and featured in Linux Journal (Sept. 2003). 'The Slidepipe', a musical instrument created by Mark for resampling bluegrass music, was exhibited at NIME 2003 and performed in the Placard Experimental Music Festival in NYC.

Mark has taught Interactive Design at York University in Toronto, and has given guest lectures at the Canadian Film Centre on Contemporary Internet Design. He was a finalist in the 2001 International Browserday Competition for his project 'Tap', which received critical mention in the New York Times. He is also a co-founder of "Jerkyvision", a Toronto-based collective of artists and developers who came together to create proprietary web software designed to showcase independent video, film, music and animation.

Dan Melinger

Dan is a communications theorist and technologist studying toward a Master's degree at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. Before ITP, Dan worked as a consultant to companies developing and implementing wireless data technologies. He also has experience in the radio and television industries. He holds a BA in Communications from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dan's major interests are in the democratizing power of computer-network distributed media. He believes that technology can bring about big changes in the types of media people consume. He is currently completing work on his graduate thesis, massiveMEDIA (massive-media.org), which examines how the availability of a plethora of media choices allowed by peer-to-peer networks will change how people consume that media.