Ross Bleckner was born in New York City and raised in Hewlett, NY, a Long Island suburb.  Mr. Bleckner received a Bachelor of Arts from New York University in 1971, a Master of Fine Arts from Cal Arts in 1973, and has taught at many of the nation's most prestigious universities.  The Solomon R. Guggenheim of Art had a major retrospective of his works in 1995, summarizing two decades of solo shows at internationally acclaimed exhibition venues such as SFMoMA, Contemporary Arts Museum, Stockholm Moderna Museet, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.  Works by Mr. Bleckner are also held in esteemed public collections throughout the globe, including MoMA, MoCA, Astrup Fearnley, Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Not only has Mr. Bleckner had a profound impact of shaping the New York art world, his philanthropic efforts have enabled many community organizations to perform their vital work.  For ten years Mr. Bleckner served as president of AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), a non-profit community-based AIDS research and treatment education center.  More recently, he has been working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Northern Uganda to help rehabilitate and raise money for ex-child soldiers. In May 2009 Mr. Bleckner was awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations.   Mr. Bleckner lives in New York City.

As Executive Director, Michelle Coffey designs, implements and furthers the strategic agenda, leadership and vision of Lambent Foundation. Through innovative grant making and projects, Lambent Foundation supports the intersections of contemporary arts and culture as critical strategies for social change. Lambent's global grant making provides critical general operating support for artist-centered organizations in the visual, performance and alternative media fields in New York, New Orleans and Nairobi.  

Prior to the creation of Lambent Foundation in January 2009, Ms. Coffey was Director of Starry Night Fund and Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Tides Foundation.  With a global lens, her areas of focus included Human Rights, Women/Girls, Criminal Justice Reform, Arts and Culture and HIV/AIDS.  Michelle Coffey joined Tides as a Program Officer in the New York Office in 2001. Prior to joining Tides, she worked on national cultural policy issues and served as a Program Officer for the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. 

In addition, she currently serves on the national boards of The Schott Foundation for Public Education and the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Care Center in East New York.

Carin Kuoni is director of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. From 1998 to 2003, she was director of exhibitions at Independent Curators International, and from 1992 to 1997 director of The Swiss Institute, a not-for-profit cultural organization in New York City. Kuoni has curated many exhibitions of contemporary international art; in 2008, her exhibition "The Puppet Show" (co-curated with Ingrid Schaffner) opened at the ICA Philadelphia (traveling to five other museums) and "OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding" was presented at Parsons The New School for Design. Kuoni is the editor of Energy Plan for the Western Man: Joseph Beuys in America and Words of Wisdom: A Curator's Vade Mecum. Considering Forgiveness, published by the Vera List Center (ed. Aleksandra Wagner, with Carin Kuoni) was published in 2009. Kuoni is a founding member of the artists' group REPOhistory and a member of AICA, CAA, and IKT. She holds a B.A. from the Sorbonne, and a M.A. from the University of Zurich.

Creative Time began commissioning innovative art in New York City in 1972, introducing millions of people every year to contemporary art while making sure it plays an active role in public life.  In 1994, Anne Pasternak joined Creative Time as its President and Artistic Director.  Her goal has been to present some of the most adventurous and historically important art in the public realm. Under her leadership, Creative Time extended it's programming nationally, making it the only national public arts organization with programs that have reached from New York to New Orleans, from Denver to Dallas, and from PA to LA. Now, Pasternak is also taking Creative Time's work global.  Renowned projects under her direction range from exhibitions and performances in the historic Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, sculptural installations in Grand Central Station's Vanderbilt Hall, sign paintings in Coney Island and skywriting over Manhattan to the Tribute in Light, the twin beacons of light that illuminated the former World Trade Center site six months after 9/11.  She has worked closely with such artists as Doug Aitken, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Mel Chin, Jim Hodges, Jenny Holzer, Sharon Hayes, Gary Hume, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Shirin Neshat, Steve Powers, Cai Guo Qiang, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Rudolf Stingel, Ugo Rondinone, and many more.

In addition to her work at Creative Time, Pasternak occasionally curates independent exhibitions, consults on urban planning initiatives, and contributes essays to cultural publications. She lectures extensively throughout the United States and Europe, and she served as a guest critic at Yale University.

Edward A. Shanken writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He is Dorothy Kayser Hohenberg Chair of Excellence in Art History at University of Memphis, a member of the Media Art History faculty at the Donau University in Krems, Austria, and core visiting tutor at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. Prior academic posts include Universitair Docent of New Media at University of Amsterdam, Docent in Comparative Arts and Media at VU University, Amsterdam, Executive Director of the Information Science + Information Studies program at Duke University, and Professor of Art History and Media Theory at Savannah College of Art and Design. Fellowships include National Endowment for the Arts, American Council of Learned Societies, UCLA, University of Bremen, and Washington University in St. Louis.  Dr. Shanken earned a Ph.D. and MA in Art History at Duke University, an MBA at Yale University, and a BA at Haverford College. Recent and forthcoming publications include essays on art and software, art historiography, land art, investigatory art, sound art and ecology, and bridging the gap between new media and contemporary art. His forthcoming book, Inventing the Future: Art, Electricity, New Media will be published in Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese in paper and e-text. He edited and wrote the introduction to a collection of essays by Roy Ascott, “Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003). His critically praised survey, Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon Press, 2009) has been expanded with an extensive, multimedia Online Companion: www.artelectronicmedia.com.

Mark Shepard is an artist, architect and researcher whose post-disciplinary practice investigates the entanglements of contemporary technologies and urban life. His work has been presented at museums, galleries and festivals internationally, including the 2012 Venice International Architecture Biennial, the 2011 Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, and the 2009 International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam. His work has been supported by Creative Capital, The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, where he was a 2011-2012 Fellow. He curated Toward the Sentient City, an exhibition that critically explored the evolving relationship between ubiquitous computing and the city through a series of commissioned projects distributed throughout New York City. He is co-editor of the Situated Technologies Pamphlets Series and editor of Sentient City: ubiquitous computing, architecture and the future of urban space, published by the Architectural League of New York and MIT Press. Mark is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Media Study at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, where he directs the Media Arts and Architecture Program (MAAP) and co-directs the Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies (CAST).

Manon Slome (PhD) is the President and Chief Curator of No Longer Empty. From 2002 to June 2008 she was the Chief Curator of the Chelsea Art Museum in New York. During that time, she curated and oversaw a program of some forty exhibitions, symposia and museum publications as well as monographs and scholarly essays. Ms. Slome became highly involved with the Israeli art scene during her research for the exhibition, Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on, (2005) and has followed and researched the Israeli scene for the last three years. Prior to the CAM, Ms. Slome worked as a curator at the Guggenheim Museum for seven years and was a holder of a Helena Rubinstein curatorial fellowship at the Whitney Independent Study program. She has written widely on contemporary art and has recently completed The Aesthetics of Terror published by Charta Press.