Marina Abramovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, has lived in Amsterdam and Berlin and is currently living and working in New York City. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965-1970 and did postdiploma studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, from 1970-1972. Abramovic has exhibited all over the world and a large amount of writing exists on her work. She has taught at various art schools including the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad, the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1976 and 1988 she collaborated with the German artist Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen), with whom she did various well-known performances.Throughout her career, her performances have involved concrete danger and physical violence, raising ethical questions and - by pushing existing bodily limits - transporting both artist and audience to a different mental state. Physically strenuous tasks have also been a way for the artist to look at the implications of embodied experience and to direct the audience towards a physical and conceptual engagement with her work. Abramovic's pieces are marked by a desire to transform her own fears and emotions into startling images that frequently take on ritual or ceremonial forms and that critique the role that the female body is made to play in Western culture.

Nina Czegledy, media artist and curator, has collaborated on international projects, produced digital works and has lead and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide. Her interest in the crossover between art, science, and technology is reflected in her involvement in projects such as: Resonance, Electromagnetic Bodies, Digitized Bodies, Virtual Spectacles, and the Aurora Project. Czegledy has curated over 35 media programs presented internationally. Her academic lectures have lead to numerous international publications. Czegledy is the President of Critical Media, a member of Leonardo Education Forum (LEF) and the Leonardo SpaceArt Network, an advisor to the UNESCO DigiArts Portal, KMDI Senior Fellow (University of Toronto), Adjunct Associate Professor (Concordia University), and the chair of the Inter Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA).

Born in 1974, in Split. She graduated in 1997, in Split, as a professor of visual arts, and attended a postgraduate study at the Arts Academy E.R.B.A.N. in Nantes, France, obtaining a degree in 1999. She also won the 2002 Artslink scholarship at the San Francisco Art Institute, USA, and the Artist in Residency, Vienna, Museum Quartier, 2004. One Person Exhibitions: 2006 All One Knows, Vukovar City Museum, (Kuba project) Vukovar, Croatia 2005 The View, Galery SC, Zagreb, Croatia 2003 Emergency Tensions, (with D.Figarella), Daniel Azoulay Gallery, Miami, Florida 2002 Wonderland, Galerie Soardi, Nice, France 2001 Did she Fall or was She Pushed?, Extended Media Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia (cat.) 2000 Renata Poljak, Galerie Soardi, Nice, France 1998 Noise / Criteria, Gallery Otok, Dubrovnik, Croatia Noise / Criteria, Architects` Club, Zagreb, Croatia Group exhibitions (selection): 2006 L’usage du monde, Mali Salon, Rijeka, Croatia Cooling Out, Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz/Basel, Switzerland Kuba: Journey Against the Current, Nestroyhof, Vienna Normalization, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden ARCO-Contemporary art fair, Madrid, by Gallery Hilger/Vienna Insert, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia 2005 Landscape in Contemporary Visual Art and Culture Between Fetishes and Ideology,- 34th Split Salon, Split, Croatia Insert, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia Binder, Milunovic, Poljak, gallery Ernst Hilger, Vienna, Austria.

Andrea Arnold is British filmmaker and writer, her film Wasp won Oscar in category for Best Short Film, in 2005. Andrea's next film Red Road won Jury Prize on Cannes Film festival in 2006. Andrea's second short film Dog won The Jameson Award for Best Film at Brief Encounters 2001. It also screened at Critics Week Cannes,2002. Her first short Milk was officially selected for competition at Cannes Film Festival (Critics Week ’98), and also selected for Best of Critics Week,Cannes, ’99. It screened at 30 International Festivals, and was described by Film Review as 'An oustanding short film'. Andrea also directs natural history programmes from all over the world for UK network television. Previously she was well known as one of the characters in the UK’s cult TV series No37 before going to study filmmaking at The American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
She is invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Live Action Short Films Branch) in 2005.

Mike Stubbs' internationally commissioned art-work encompasses film, video, new media installation, performance and curating. Recent productions include a solo exhibition at BALTIC, Gateshead (UK). Titled City Strapline Industries, the exhibition was developed through a residency hosted by the city marketing agency, and explored the complex social issues surrounding regeneration of a city. The exhibition featured new video works (including Cultural Quarter), photography, a web site, found objects and text. In 2003, Stubbs presented Jump Jet, a large scale outdoor projection and twin screen gallery installation made on location at RAF Wittering as part of a residency at Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery. Speechless, an outdoor projection and streaming media website was commissioned by Hull Time Based Arts in 2003, and included Mother Nature, a short video shown at Cambridge Film Festival and Werklietz Biennale [also featured on the Forma website]. Recent broadcast films include his short dance film, Resistor (BBC 2) and Donut (Channel 4), which also was shown in installation form as the inaugural show for The Image Gallery in Bedford, at the Science Museum in London, the Moving Image Centre, Aukland, New Zealand, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow and Cornerhouse, Manchester. Stubbs has received more than a dozen major international awards including four prizes for Cultural Quarter, first prizes at 11th International Media Art Biennale, Wroclaw (2005), Oberhausen and Graz (Homing YA/BFI 1995), Osnabruk (Gift, BBC2, 1996) and Locarno (Sweatlodge, 1992). In 1999, Tate Britain, London, invited him to present a video retrospective. Trained at Cardiff Art College and the Royal College of Art, London, Mike Stubbs is currently Curatorial Manager for the Australian Centre for Moving Image, Melbourne and Honorary Lecturer, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Prior to this, his work as Founding Director at Hull Time Based Arts won him recognition as a promoter of new media in an international context.

Anouk de Clercq (°1971) studied notation and piano at the musicschool in Ghent and film at the Sint-Lukas Art Academy in Brussels.
Besides mixing different artforms in her videowork – combining images, text, music, animation and architecture in video-installations – she also regularly collaborates with artists working in different fields: musicians, choreographers, writers, architects, fashion and graphic designers.
Anouk de Clercq lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
http://www.portapak.be