Peter Bussigel, PhD
Co-director
Assistant Professor, New Media + Sound Arts
I work and teach on the on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. My research focuses on ways that new technologies shape and shift how we communicate, and specifically, how we listen. This research takes many forms, including installations, performances, videos, creative tools, and writing. Regardless of the output, I continually return to the idea of interfacing — the process of connecting with our machines, but also with people, entities, objects, and our environments. I am interested in the ideologies embedded in our electronic and digital interfaces and my work attempts to navigate the complex network of relations between people and the technologies they create. I also make music with brass instruments and electronics and teach new media and sound arts at Emily Carr University.
Julie Andreyev, PhD
Co-director
Associate Professor, New Media + Sound Arts
I am an artist, researcher and educator. I acknowledge that I live, work and teach on the on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples and the unceded traditional territories of more-than-human life: ravens, crows, firs, cedars, bears, salmons, deers, raccoons, woodpeckers, wolves and more. My multispecies studio called Animal Lover explores more-than-human creativity to develop kinships with local lifeforms and ecologies. I am currently working on creative co-productions with birds (Bird Park Survival Station), and sound art experiences with trees and forests (Branching Songs). My book is Lessons from a Multispecies Art Studio: Uncovering Ecological Understanding & Biophilia Through Creative Reciprocity. Intellect Books, 2021. I am Associate Professor in the Audain Faculty of Art where I teach New Media + Sound Arts, Animal Ethics + Creativity, and Ecological Practices Field School.
Asad Aftab, MDes
Research Technician
Sessional Faculty, Interaction Design
Asad Aftab is an internationally exhibiting, award-winning media artist, filmmaker, and designer based in Vancouver, whose work explores the intersection of spatial storytelling and emerging technologies. Asad brings a systems-level understanding of form, space, and user experience to his creative practice.
Alan Goldman
Industry Liaison, Research
Alan began his career in radio and was part of the award-winning team that produced the five-part national CBC Radio series A Matter of Survival, hosted by Dr. David Suzuki. Alan produced the award-winning Glowing In The Dark, which looks at the history of neon in Vancouver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas and also is the director of the semi-autobiographical film Who The Jew Are You? Alan has taught courses in the fields of film and digital media at numerous institutions. He completed his MAA at Emily Carr University of Art & Design focusing on 3D and its effect on documentary. Currently, Alan is a Researcher and Industry Liaison at the Basically Good Media Lab at Emily Carr University. The Lab serves as a collaborative space for prototyping and production of immersive content. He also serves as board chair of ‘The Cube Society’, whose mission is to create a creative culture and business ecosystem to make BC a world leader in VR/AR.
Omar Khalil
Research Assistant
Khalil Alomar is a queer Lebanese Canadian experimental visual and audio artist with background in Education, currently studying New Media and Sound Art at Emily Carr University. Living on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl ̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, Alomar has focused his latest work on installations, and sound art that suggest a critique on systemic aggressions, and collages (paper and video) that touch discussions on gender, race, and class
Rafael Zen
Research Assistant
Rafael Zen is a queer Latinx video/sound artist + performer, currently living in the land of the Coast Salish peoples – Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam (also called Vancouver in its colonial statement). They research intersections between new media, performance, and decolonial resistance, and organize Durations, an independent sound art + video art festival for emerging media/performing artists. They hold a Master’s degree in Visual Arts – Contemporary Artistic Processes, and two graduate certificates in Contemporary Literature and Semiotics, researching anti-colonial + anti-capitalist poetic/political practices, identity-based politics, decolonial storytelling/theory, and political counterattacks through artistic processes. Currently, they pursue a degree in New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University of Arts + Design.
Kyla Dooley
Research Assistant
I make art on the unceded lands of the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. My work examines the nuance and malleability of perception—particularly the perception of space, time, media, and social choreographies. The output of this research is often interactive, frequently as sculpture, commonly with programming, occasionally as installation, sometimes as video, rarely as drawing, never as painting, and always as conversation.
Alumni & Past Contributors
Maria Lantin, PhD
Previous Director, 2009-23
Maria Lantin is an independent artist, thinker, and creative coder. She has a deep interest in space and movement both physical and metaphorical, and this is woven through her work in immersive media and interaction. She takes pleasure in scanning the technological horizon for trends in human fascination – what is grabbing our attention and why. Formative experiences include a BSc and PhD in Computing Science (Dalhousie University and Simon Fraser University), a wonderful stint at Mainframe Entertainment working on the first ever stereoscopic animation for the IMAX screen (it never made it to the screen but it was amazing), three fantastic years at the ground-breaking Banff New Media Institute’s Advanced Art and Technology (A.R.T) labs, and sixteen years at Emily Carr University in various roles including Director of the Basically Good Media Lab, Director of Research, and Director of the Intersections Digital Studios. Her curiosity is currently directed at ways of weaving the body and the material with the digital. Dr. Lantin’s current research is in language, movement, and performance with and within virtual worlds — designing new social and poetic experiences for dancers, actors, writers, and audiences.
Sean Arden, MFA
Alumnus, Research Technician, Collaborator
Sean Arden is an artist /filmmaker holding a Master of Applied Arts in Media from Emily Carr University. With over 12 years of experience implementing experimental technologies for the arts, Sean is an experienced research technician and consultant specializing in advanced media practices and public art production. Sean has a strong focus on enabling researchers to implement and excel using new technologies. A creative interpreter between engineering and art
Edward Madojemu
alumnus, collaborator
I’m an animator with a specialty in XR and game development. A lot of my work revolves around researching and developing ways to use tech to empower artists, finding efficient and comfortable ways to independently create digital media. When I’m not doing that, I’m hard at work telling stories that highlight Afrocentric experiences.
Vincent Isabel
alumnus, collaborator
Vincent Isabel is a multidisciplinary artist from Montreal, now based in Vancouver. His work and research explore how performance can bring in technologies, sculpture, and sound together. He intuitively looks for inspiration in found objects and surrounding events of his everyday life, guiding his practice and conceptual thinking around boredom, immersion, and interaction. By jumping into unknown circumstances, Vincent’s creative process brings him to surprising projects dealing with a multitude of ideas. By doing so he accumulated a great deal of knowledge in 3D art, game engines, performance, and metalworking.
Myles Feltenberger
alumnus, collaborator
Thomas “Myles” Feltenberger is a sound artist and musician from the Chicagoland area, currently based in Vancouver, BC. Having studied New Media and Sound Art at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, they work in digital media with a focus on sound and video. Their practice focuses primarily on sampling and synthesis techniques to create dense soundscapes, often moving between genres and worlds. As a part of the Apollo’s Harp collective, they produce beat-based music under the moniker “Veltenhill,” and have performed at various venues throughout the greater Metro Vancouver area.
Logan Wilkinson
alumnus, collaborator
Logan is a multi-media artist and designer with a focus on participatory and community-based methodologies. She draws from her background in psychology research to inform her creative practice. Her work explores themes of sonic perception and agency, music as a tool for social connection, and accessibility for sensory sensitivity. Logan lives on unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl ̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples.
Keira Madsen
alumnus, collaborator
Keira Madsen is an emerging artist, producer, and performer currently based in so-called “Vancouver, Canada”. Under the moniker Lunr Girl, she makes experimental electronic dreampop.
Her music blends spacey synths, driving rhythms, and lush vocals to create an immersive and richly textured sonic world. Inspired by the rhythms of Four Tet and the soft technopop vocals of Kelly Lee Owens, Lunr Girl blurs genre boundaries to create a captivating blend of introspection and dancefloor energy.
Keira grew up improvising on the piano as a hobby, played cello and bass clarinet in school bands, and sang in her high school jazz choir. However, she never thought of herself as very musical. It wasn’t until early 2020, at the age of 25, that the penny dropped. She was introduced to a DAW and realized that her piano improvisations could be transformed into multi-layered creations on the computer. Shortly after that, Keira started in the New Media + Sound Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She graduated in 2023 as the recipient of the John C. Kerr Chancellor Emeritus Award for Excellence in Media Arts for her graduation project: a compilation of 14 songs created in her final year.
Since graduating in May 2023, Keira has been focused on developing her career as a self-managed independent artist. In addition to regular live performances in Vancouver, she has built a growing following on social media and maintains a YouTube channel featuring her performances and music visualizers. In late December 2023 she began releasing monthly singles. Her debut EP, Mind Reader, was released in May 2024. Since then, she has continued releasing monthly singles.
Alonso Benavente Fortes
alumnus, collaborator
Alonso is a Peruvian-Ecuadorian artist with a Film + Video + Integrated Media major at Emily Carr. His current interests involve, Stereoscopic, Magic Lantern RAW and HDR Cinematography along with researching the best kind of workflows for this techniques.
With the support of center, Alonso plans to shoot his grad film in 3D for the Virtual Reality headset the ‘Oculus Rift’ along with Binaural gyroscopic 3D sound recording.