Speakers

JEN BEKMAN

Jen Bekman is an art-dealer, curator, writer, and entrepreneur whose inventive approach to the art world has created new models for connecting artists and collectors. Her experience as an internet media executive informs a multi-faceted enterprise. Jen Bekman Projects includes her eponymous Manhattan gallery (which pioneered the Lower East Side art scene upon its opening in 2003), the online endeavor 20×200 (a place to buy limited-edition fine-art prints at ridiculously affordable prices), and the international photography competition Hey, Hot Shot!

TITUS BICKNELL

Titus Bicknell (born September 24, 1971) is a technologist,  co-founder of pinkink. and TheGalleryChannel.com. Apart from a fascinating stint at NBC Universal in 2007-8 working on the big screen, Titus has spent the last 10 years exploring the small screen both web and hand held. As Chief Engineer at Antenna Audio and subsequently Head of Mobile Technologies at Discovery Communications, He was fortunate to participate in ground breaking handheld projects at Tate Modern, the Louvre, Pompidou, the Intel Museum, and the Getty, among others. In his current role, he is developing technology solutions for a number of pedagogical experiences including Experius Academy, Gateway Canyons Resort and the Gateway Colorado Automobile Museum.

JOHN BIRDSONG

John Christopher Alexander Michael Birdsong is a Producer Director Editor (aka Preditor) and Technical Director for Panman Productions in NYC. John has an Associate’s Degree from SUNY Suffolk in Photographic Imaging. It was during this time that he interned and was hired as a Producer for Plum TV.  John stayed at Plum TV in the Hamptons and Nantucket for three years directing LIVE TV and creating original content and advertising. He then worked as a Preditor for HairdesignerTV.com; spearheading their LIVE web series and installing and using Darwin (open source broadcasting software) on their servers before USTREAM existed. John spends endless amounts of time on the internet and is a devout insomniac; somtimes mixing dreamtime with what appears to him to be reality. John lives with his Girlfriend Morgan-Jo Teller and their cat Fanny Fae McNamara in Hipsterville, Brooklyn.

ALLEGRA BURNETTE

Allegra Burnette is the Creative Director of Digital Media at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, overseeing the design and production for the museum’s website, MoMA.org, as well as mobile devices, interpretive kiosks and digital displays. Online projects include two complete site redesigns, creating the online collection and audience-specific sites for teachers, teens, and kids, overseeing an ongoing series of award-winning exhibition sites, and extending the reach of MoMA’s content through iTunes U, YouTube, and elsewhere. Offline projects include lobby display screens and the launch of MoMA.guide, a series of interactive kiosks. Prior to working at MoMA, Ms. Burnette created and ran a media department at the renowned museum exhibition design firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates. She has an MFA in museum exhibition planning and design from the University of the Arts, where she has also taught graduate courses in museum media. She currently teaches in the online graduate program for Museum Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

SAUL COLT

Saul Colt is the Lead Evangelist for Thoora.com He was recently named as one of the iMEDIA 25: Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators and has been called one of Canada’s best community builders/experiential marketers, even Chris Brogan once referred to Saul as “exactly who you want representing your company”. Saul loves people but especially women and is tired of people asking him to remove his shirt.

MOLLY CRABAPPLE

Molly Crabapple is an award-winning artist, author and founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. She has been called “One of New York’s coolest denizens” by the NY Post, “a downtown phenomenon” by the NewYork Times, and “THE artist of our time” by comedian Margaret Cho. Herwork has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Marvel Comics, and she has spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, South by Southwest Interactive, and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki.  Molly c alls  New  York  her home, but travels internationally speaking, exhibiting art, and spreading the Sketchy’s gospel.

MARYANN DEVINE

In 2006, Maryann Devine was working as director of marketing and public relations at The Academy of Vocal Arts, a post-graduate training program for emerging opera singers. She had been part of the cultural world in Philadelphia for 16 years at that point, and decided that her next step would be a little different. She created smArts & Culture to help artists and arts groups connect with the people who love them best. Together with one of her first clients, artist Daniel Heyman, Maryann created local and national media attention for his politically-charged work, then showing at The Print Center. The results included Daniel’s first Art in America review. As a consultant working with Night Kitchen Interactive, she crafted persuasive writing that was tailored to the online visitor for three new giving sites for the Smithsonian Institution. She taught audience development and technology for Drexel University’s graduate program in arts administration. Through her blog, she’s been helping arts people all over the world to work social media into their marketing since 2005. She created audio classes and e-courses especially for people in the arts who have little time but a passion to learn. You can find out more and sign up for a free arts marketing e-course at smartsandculture.com.

CHARLES FESTA

Charles Festa, Community Manager at Threadless corporation has been the voice/face of threadless for more than six years.  His passion for working with the Threadless community on a day to day basis comes through in all of the innovative, popular promotions he creates via social media and threadless. When he’s not creating amazing promotions, he’s monitoring social media sites, planning events and helping out anyone who needs help with threadless.com.

TYLER GREEN

Tyler Green edits and writes Modern Art Notes (artsjournal.com/man). It features art criticism, analysis and frequently breaks major art world news stories. The Wall Street Journal has called MAN “the most influential of all visual arts blogs” and has said that “You won’t find a better-informed art writer than Tyler Green.” Green also lectures at museums and universities and has published regularly in magazines and on op-ed pages.

RYAN LAWLER

Ryan has spent the last 5 years covering business, technology, and telecom-related subjects for a variety of publications based in New York. He’s the newest staff writer for GigaOm and NewTeeVee, but spent the previous two years following online video and digital media trends at Contentinople. Prior to that, Ryan covered telecom infrastructure for Light Reading.

CAROLINA A. MIRANDA

Carolina A. Miranda is a New York-based freelance writer who contributes articles on travel, culture and the arts to a variety of national and regional media, including Time, ArtNews, Travel + Leisure, Budget Travel and Florida Travel + Life. She is a regular contributor at WNYC, New York’s public radio affiliate, where she produces on-air and multimedia reports devoted to the arts. Previously, she was a reporter at Time magazine, where she covered culture, education and social issues, in addition to breaking news. She has reported on the burgeoning industry of skatepark design, architectural pedagogy in Southern California, the presence of street art in museums and Lima’s burgeoning food scene, among many other subjects. In 2008, she was named one of eight fellows in the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program for her arts and architecture blog C-Monster.net, which has received mentions in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In January of 2010, the Times named her one of nine people to follow on Twitter. You can find her at @cmonstah.

ISRAEL MIRSKY

Grounded by a successful background in emerging media and computer science, Mirsky has developed innovative campaigns and strategies that leverage branded content streams, communities and a wide variety of social tools. He is currently EVP of emerging media and technology at Porter Novelli, where he focuses on identifying and developing breakthrough technologies and associated strategies for use across PN’s internal and client facing operations.

ERIC MORTENSEN

Building on prior experience in art, technology and digital media, Eric Mortensen joined blip.tv in 2006 as the Director of Content, where he oversees discovery of and interaction with new media content creators. As a founder of the pioneering social bookmarking site, linkfilter.net, a prolific blogger and the co-founder of Digital Dissonance — a digital music collaboration created in 1994 and pre-dating the commercial Internet — Mortensen has spent more than fourteen years as a new media innovator and expert. After studying Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music, Mortensen held various positions in both old and new media as musician, web designer, data analyst and technology consultant.

JONATHAN MUNAR

Jonathan Munar is the Web Manager at Art21—a non-profit contemporary arts organization and producer of a Peabody Award-winning PBS series—where he manages the Art21 Web presence, initiatives, and strategies, as well as the organization’s social media activities. Jonathan is the editor the “Art 2.1″ column on the Art21 blog, which explores the uses of social and Web-based technologies by artists, museums, and other relevant arts organizations and individuals. Before joining Art21 in 2008, Jonathan was the Website Technology Manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

MONI PINEDA

Multi-media artist Moni Pineda and filmmaker Mike Vargas co-founded Friends We Love, a boutique production company and web TV station with a mission to create, educate & celebrate through the arts. FWL consists of short-documentary series, educational initiatives and public art events to bridge the online & offline communities.  With combined production experience of 18 years, the team’s client list includes Nike, Overbrook Entertainment, Diesel & Absolut while their work has been nationally broadcast on PBS and Discovery’s Travel Channel and screened at various international film festivals.

JANE PARK

Jane communicates from Brooklyn, New York working to promote CC in education, especially on the east coast. A California native, she has degrees in Philosophy (B.A.) and Creative Writing from UC Berkeley. She is involved with the Peer 2 Peer University and has designed and facilitated a course on creative nonfiction. She is also an AmeriCorps alum and has worked for the National Writing Project. She likes running (when it’s not cold), and views from high places.

MARIA POPOVA

Maria Popova is the founder and editor in chief of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of indiscriminate curiosity and a celebration of the cross-pollination of ideas, spanning disciplines and niches from design to technology to neuroscience. She is a prolific purveyor of eclectic interestingness on Twitter, a contributing writer with Wired UK and GOOD Magazine, and a chronic TEDster. Maria recently moved to Los Angeles, where she works as a cultural curator and planner at TBWA\Chiat\Day.

NANCY PROCTOR

With a PhD in American art history and a background in filmmaking, curation and art criticism, Nancy Proctor is Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. After co-founding art listings portal, TheGalleryChannel.com, in 1998, she headed up New Product Development at Antenna Audio for nearly 8 years, introducing the company’s multimedia, sign language, downloadable, podcast and cell phone tours. She also led Antenna’s sales in France from 2006-2007. When Antenna Audio was acquired by Discovery Communications in 2006, Nancy worked with the Travel Channel’s product development team and subsequently headed up research and development for the nascent Discovery Audio brand. She now works cross-platform again as Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where she continues to teach, lecture and publish widely on museum interpretation for digital platforms. She also manages MuseumMobile.info and its wiki and podcast series on mobile interpretation content and technology for cultural sites. Nancy was recently appointed Digital Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal.

MARC SCHILLER

Marc Schiller, along with is wife Sara, are The Wooster Collective. Celebrating street art, their mission is to discover and document authentic art experiences via salons, books, gallery shows and, of course, their renowned website. Having documented street art from around the world for the past seven years, they have covered over 2 000 artists. The Schillers were behind the legendary 11 Spring Street exhibition in 2006, chosen as one of the top art shows of the year by the New York Times. In addition to Wooster, Marc is also the CEO and founder of New York-based marketing agency, Electric Artists and co-founder of Meet at the Apartment, a creative meeting space in SoHo, NYC.

MICHELLE SHILDKRET

Michelle Shildkret runs the Social Marketing Team for Cake US, spearheading client work ranging from the management of Motorola’s social media presences, the digital re-launch of the Prince’s Rainforests Project initiative, blogger outreach for Sears and Volvo, to social listening, strategy development and community management for Havaianas. 

She is also regularly tapped by trend-hunting consultancy PSFK for cool hunting programs and reports, and has authored their new book PSFK Snapshot Brooklyn. 

Michelle lives and breathes social media and online community development. You can find her on Twitter (@miishi), Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, LinkedIn, Delicious, Google Buzz and the many other social networks where she has developed and executed successful online campaigns for a variety of entertainment, fashion, media, non profit and consumer brands. 

Michelle graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Industrial Design.

ADAM SMITH

Adam Smith is the Marketing Manager for Dance Theater Workshop and an ensemble member of the New York Neo-Futurists. He produces online video for both organizations. Through the Dance Theater Workshop Twitter account (@dancetworkshop), he & dance artist Jillian Sweeney created the Twitter Community Choreography project, a program that “tweet-sources” dance movement that are then performed f or the camera.

YANCEY STRICKLER

Yancey Strickler is the cofounder of the Brooklyn-based Kickstarter. Yancey formerly served as Editor in Chief at eMusic, where he created and produced a TV series and founded a record label. His writing has appeared in Pitchfork, Spin, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications.

HRAG VARTANIAN

Hrag Vartanian is a Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based writer, critic and cultural worker. His work has appeared in Ararat, Art21 Blog, AGBU News, Boldtype, Brooklyn Rail, BushwickBK, NYFA’s Current, Huffington Post and Modern Painters. He blogs at hragvartanian.com and is the founder and editor of Hyperallergic. In addition to his writing, he photographs, curates and maintains an extensive archive of art documentation on Flickr (close too 4,500 public images) at flickr.com/hragvartanian. Available free of charge, under a Creative Commons 2.0 license, the images have been published in dozens of electronic and print publications around the world, including BusinessWeek, UTNE Reader & Village Voice, to publicize the work of emerging artists and art scenes. He serves on the board of the international art nonprofit organization Triangle Arts Workshop, which is headquartered in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

NATASHA WESCOAT

Natasha is a prolific artist with a passion for community and new media. Her tech savvy has helped propel her work onto a global scale through the use of social media sites like Twitter and her blog, NatashasArtCandy.com. Natasha’s art graces over 1000 private and corporate collections worldwide, garnering a devoted following that has allowed her to work with television shows and tech events. She is a regular contributor to EBSQ Art Meets Blog and helped start Create Live, educating artists and creative businesses on utilizing the web to promote their work.