Johan Bollen is a Professor of Informatics and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. He is a founding director of the Center for Social and Biomedical Complexity at Indiana University, and a fellow at the Center for Urban Mental Health at the University of Amsterdam and at the Synergy Program for Analyzing Resilience and Critical transitionS at Wageningen University. He has published broadly on questions at the intersection of social complexity, cultural evolution, collective intelligence, health, and AI. Johan lives in Bloomington, Indiana where he performs as a resident DJ at two of its pre-eminent dance clubs (@deejayangst).
David Crandall is Luddy Professor of Computer Science in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at Indiana University. His research interests include: computer vision, machine learning, data mining and image processing. He obtained a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University in 2008 and was a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell from 2008 to 2010. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science and engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 2001 and was a senior research scientist at Eastman Kodak Co. from 2001 to 2003.
Ed Dallis-Comentale proposes to address the critical history of automatic writing from the romantic poets to the modernist avant-garde to the current AI generation in a book-length project. As part of his study, Comentale extends his scope to include industry-driven technological changes reflected in automation in post-World War II literature. These investigations include the fictions of Thomas Pynchon, as well as systems theory on the technology-informed evolution of institutional administrations and the cultivation of bureaucrats and technocrats.
Ed Dallis-Comentale is professor of English and Strategic Advisor to the Vice President for Research for the Arts and Humanities at Indiana University. He is the Director of the IU Bloomington Arts and Humanities Council, which is charged by the provost to expand arts and humanities campus programming that links artists, scholars, students and the public. Dallis-Comentale earned a Ph.D. at the State University of New York in Buffalo and is author of several books on modernism and co-editor of “The Year’s Work at the Zombie Research Center” and “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies.” His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and NBC’s Dateline.
Ed Dallis-Comentale is professor of English and Strategic Advisor to the Vice President for Research for the Arts and Humanities at Indiana University. He is the Director of the IU Bloomington Arts and Humanities Council, which is charged by the provost to expand arts and humanities campus programming that links artists, scholars, students and the public. Dallis-Comentale earned a Ph.D. at the State University of New York in Buffalo and is author of several books on modernism and co-editor of “The Year’s Work at the Zombie Research Center” and “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies.” His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and NBC’s Dateline.
Stephanie DeBoer’s project addresses interfaces between large-scale infrastructural “intelligent” communication systems, such as networked AI, and our everyday spaces of inhabitation. Envisioned as a series of workshops and interdisciplinary dialogues between media artists, curators, and scholars, it investigates the potentials and perils of everyday inhabitation – how we live, dwell, work, play, transit, linger, commune, create – in the face of networked AI and other digital/communication infrastructures, both “new” and “old,” and as distinctly located from one place to another. What dynamics of governance, sociality, or culture might be generated in and upon such embodied infrastructural interfaces?
Stephanie DeBoer is an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the Media School at Indiana University. She is also affiliated with the Departments of Geography and East Asian Languages and Cultures, as well as the Cultural Studies Program. Her research, creative activities, and teaching address the co-constitution of place, space, and location as they are produced within transnational, regional, and urban screen media cultures. Often collaborative, her work is interdisciplinary and multi-modal, drawing from critical screen, cinema, and media studies; critical geography studies; urban and infrastructure studies; global, transnational, and regional studies; as well as digital humanities and creative practice.
Stephanie DeBoer is an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the Media School at Indiana University. She is also affiliated with the Departments of Geography and East Asian Languages and Cultures, as well as the Cultural Studies Program. Her research, creative activities, and teaching address the co-constitution of place, space, and location as they are produced within transnational, regional, and urban screen media cultures. Often collaborative, her work is interdisciplinary and multi-modal, drawing from critical screen, cinema, and media studies; critical geography studies; urban and infrastructure studies; global, transnational, and regional studies; as well as digital humanities and creative practice.
Dr. Goldman’s research investigates the comparative processes and outputs of AI-generated and human-composed songwriting, analyzing how each approaches musical structure, lyrical coherence, and expressive depth. Currently under peer review for SMT-V, the Society for Music Theory’s video journal, the study examines the creative mechanisms behind AI composition and its implications for human creativity. If accepted, the work will be adapted into a public-facing video, making these insights accessible to a broader audience. This research contributes to ongoing discussions on the evolving role of AI in music, questioning the boundaries of authorship, originality, and artistic intent in an era of machine-generated content.
Andrew Goldman is an assistant professor of music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and an assistant professor of cognitive science at the IU College of Arts and Sciences. With a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Music and Science, he has held prestigious research positions at Columbia University and Western University before joining IU in 2020. His work bridges scientific and humanistic approaches to music, focusing on improvisation, musical cognition, and perception. As director of IU’s Music and Mind Lab, he leads interdisciplinary research using behavioral and neuroscientific methods. Also a pianist and composer, Goldman explores the intersection of music and science through creative projects, including his original musical, Science! The Musical.
Jordan Munson’s far-reaching project, Residuals, explores human-machine interactions in music and the evolution of ideas that occur in these translations. The project will research new music technologies which allow for highly expressive human-computer interfacing, as well as AI interpretations of human input. Project goals for Residuals include: the development of hardware-software systems utilizing machine learning/neural network algorithms and modern computer-based musical interfaces to both generate creative content and interpret live human musical performance, the creation and performance of new musical compositions with these systems, and the documentation/distribution of these new works.
Jordan Munson is a composer, performer and multimedia artist. Drawing from backgrounds in percussion performance, improvisation, pop and sound design, his work juxtaposes subtle landscapes of layered textures with driving melodic arrivals. Jordan utilizes technology to interpret natural sounds and vice versa, focusing on the transmission losses that occur from this constant re-synthesis. Munson is a Senior Lecturer of Music and Arts Technology and a candidate for Teaching Professor at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.
Jordan Munson is a composer, performer and multimedia artist. Drawing from backgrounds in percussion performance, improvisation, pop and sound design, his work juxtaposes subtle landscapes of layered textures with driving melodic arrivals. Jordan utilizes technology to interpret natural sounds and vice versa, focusing on the transmission losses that occur from this constant re-synthesis. Munson is a Senior Lecturer of Music and Arts Technology and a candidate for Teaching Professor at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.
Rachel Plotnick’s recent work centers on no-contact and touchless technologies which surged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scholars have recently argued that the “luxury” of not-touching has become a “necessity,” which has precipitated the development of new interfaces that employ voice, gesture, and sight rather than hand operation. Furthermore, a spate of conversational bots, listening technologies, and biometric identification systems have cropped up to take the place of more traditional touch inputs, introducing new algorithmic logics and bodily orientations into such interactions. Plotnick will situate the current conversation around touchlessness within a longer historical context while addressing pressing ethical considerations.
Rachel Plotnick is an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. She received her PhD from the Media, Technology and Society program in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Her research agenda examines human-machine relations, particularly as they relate to interfaces. Plotnick’s book, Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic and the Politics of Pushing, is published by The MIT Press. Her research is also featured in Technology and Culture, New Media and Society, the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Media, Culture and Society and others.
Rachel Plotnick is an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. She received her PhD from the Media, Technology and Society program in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Her research agenda examines human-machine relations, particularly as they relate to interfaces. Plotnick’s book, Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic and the Politics of Pushing, is published by The MIT Press. Her research is also featured in Technology and Culture, New Media and Society, the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Media, Culture and Society and others.
Caleb Weintraub, who has employed generative AIs as a sketchbook since 2019, is interested in the ethical aspects of the development and application of digital technologies within the Arts and Humanities. Weintraub aims to organize and contribute to experiences, programming and platforms that address complex questions at the intersection of technology and society, with topics including AI, algorithms, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and augmentation of traditional media. Some examples of these innovative ideas include AI Literary Arts Generator, Adaptive Networked Sculpture, Digital Cultural Heritage Preservation Lab, and Experimental Interactive Media Incubator.
Caleb Weintraub Weintraub is an Associate Professor of Painting at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University Bloomington. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Upcoming shows include: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago; Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art; and the International Museum of Art and Science in Texas. Two of his paintings are featured in the book Signs of the Apocalypse/ Rapture published by Front Forty press, distributed by University of Chicago Press. He has been an artist-in-residence at Redux Art Center in South Carolina and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Significant group shows include exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Hyde Park Art Center, and Scion Art Space in Los Angeles.
Caleb Weintraub Weintraub is an Associate Professor of Painting at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University Bloomington. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Upcoming shows include: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago; Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art; and the International Museum of Art and Science in Texas. Two of his paintings are featured in the book Signs of the Apocalypse/ Rapture published by Front Forty press, distributed by University of Chicago Press. He has been an artist-in-residence at Redux Art Center in South Carolina and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Significant group shows include exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Hyde Park Art Center, and Scion Art Space in Los Angeles.