Ruth Catlow - Co-founder, Furtherfield

Ruth Catlow is an artist (b. 1968, London) who works with emancipatory network cultures, practices and poetics. She is co-founder and artistic director, with Marc Garrett, of Furtherfield for arts, technology and social change. Furtherfield’s public exhibition and lab venues in the heart of Finsbury Park, London, provide a unique physical interface for free exhibitions, events and workshops and an online hub provides a forum for exchange and critical review. These spaces bring together diverse local cultures with thriving networks of international artists, technologists and activists. They provide scratch spaces for commissions and exhibitions to tour nationally and internationally, to strengthen the expressive and democratic potential of shared techno-social landscape.

Catlow has co-curated Furtherfield exhibition programmes since 2005 including Being Social, World Wild Web and Digital Zoo (currently touring in 5 major UK shopping centres). She co-curated Collaboration and Freedom – The World of Free and Open Source Art (2011), an online collection for Arts Council England and P2P Foundation.Catlow’s artwork is exhibited world wide and featured in a number of publications.

Selected artistic projects include: Play Your Place with Mary Flanagan (US) (2012-13); Rethinking Wargames (Lo-fi Netart commission 2003) exhibited The Baltic, Gateshead, currently touring as part of Free Play with International Curation Projects; Festival of Money, with Marc Garrett, exhibited as part of Net Video Black Box at Givon Gallery (2012), Tel Aviv; DIWO (Do It With Others) Furtherfield (UK) (2007-), Pixelache (FI) (2012), CLICK (DK) (2014); WeWontFlyForArt (2009) exhibited at the RSA and Ecology Sustainable Art Awards, London; and Zero Dollar Laptop (2010-). Furtherfield’s VisitorsStudio, artware with Marc Garrett and Neil Jenkins, awarded the 2009 Grand Net Art Prize by Machido Museum, (JA). Her work is also featured on DVblog, the Rhizome Artbase and The Digital Kitchen.

Usman Haque - Founding Partner, Umbrellium

Usman is founding partner of Umbrellium (formerly Haque Design + Research) and founder of Internet of Things data infrastructure and community platform Pachube.com, (acquired by LogMeIn Inc in 2011, where he launched the Urban Projects Division). Trained as an architect, he has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interfaces and dozens of mass-participation initiatives in cities throughout the world. He has taught in the Interactive Architecture Workshop at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London and in 2008 received the Design of the Year Award (interactive) from the Design Museum. Twitter: @uah.