Jurors

ART Jurors

Andreea Ion CojoCaru

Co-Founder and CEO of NUMENA

Andreea Ion CojoCaru is the co-founder and CEO of NUMENA, an award-winning German design firm. Andreea works at the intersection of traditional architecture and immersive tech to develop projects that require a new approach to both cognitive and spatial challenges. Although her work deeply explores profound philosophical dimensions, it is grounded in a highly technical background – she is both an accomplished licensed architect as well as a talented software developer.

Andreea believes that by expanding the possibilities and affordances of spatial experience, we are expanding and redefining identity, subjectivity and modes of collective being. Andreea’s unique work in exploring the boundaries between physical and virtual spaces is breaking new ground and as such her ideas are in demand in cutting-edge international forums, including recently presenting at SXSW, Germany’s VR Now, and London’s Immersive Architecture of the Internet Symposium.

Evidence of interest in her work goes beyond the lecture circuit. Andreea’s company, Numena, recently received a 2 million Euro grant to work on behavioral analysis and participatory design using VR with Spectra City. Spectra City is an open-source toolkit and design process where physical place makers and digital world builders work together to create a design depository available to everyone. At its root her work explores the dynamic relationship between mind and world.

Andreea was formally trained as an architect at MIT and Yale where she was awarded the AIA Gold Medal for best graduating master student by the American Institute of Architects. Prior to NUMENA, she gained design and project management experience in architecture practices such as Kohn Pedersen Fox and Robert A.M. Stern in New York.

Dr. Arnaud Morvan

Curator and Researcher in Indigenous Art

Dr. Arnaud Morvan is a curator and researcher in art, ethnography, and environmental humanities. He collaborates with indigenous artists and museums in France and Australia and has published extensively on indigenous art collections in Europe, including Vivid Memory. An Aboriginal Art History (2014). He is an honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Curated by Arnaud Morvan (Anthropologist, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie sociale, Paris) and Paul Matharan (Curator of Non-European Collections, Musée d’Aquitaine) the 2014 show Mémoires vives in Musée D’Aquitaine was a groundbreaking show exploring the History of Australian Indigenous Art in its relationship to the ancient and the modern.
The exhibition combined traditional works (including ceremonial objects and artefacts) and contemporary artworks, aiming at understanding the transformations and dynamics of this artistic tradition dating back to more than 40,000 years ago, and which is at the origin of numerous contemporary art movements in Australia.

Chris Edwards

Founder and CEO of The Third Floor
Co-Founder of the Virtual Reality Company (VRC)

Chris Edwards is the CEO and Co-Founder of, The Third Floor (TTF), the global leader in Digital Media Visualization. For almost two decades, The Third Floor has supported world-class Directors and Designers from Los Angeles to Beijing, by creating highly detailed visualizations of Films, Television Series, Commercials, Video Games, VR/AR Experiences and Theme Park Attractions.

Since its founding in Los Angeles in 2004, Third Floor’s 450 employees have contributed to breakthrough projects from Avatar to Gravity. Third Floor has worked on over 100 major films including all of Marvel Studio features, Avatar, Godzilla, Spiderman, The Hunger Games with recent credits including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Captain America: Civil War and Game of Thrones. The Third Floor has received three Emmy Awards, as well as numerous awards from the Visual Effects Society, the Themed Entertainment Association, Hollywood Post Alliance and SIGGRAPH.

Having amassed prestigious credits on many Hollywood blockbusters, Chris was invited to join the jury at CSFF, the “China International New Media Short Film Festival,” hosted in Shenzhen in 2008. After meeting with local filmmakers from the region, and witnessing their passion for the most sophisticated storytelling, Edwards made it his mission to establish TTF Beijing to bring the best of The Third Floor’s cinematic technology and filmmaking expertise to the PRC.

Chris is also co-founder of the Virtual Reality Company which is widely recognized as the world leader in the creation of story-driven VR content and experiences.
Chris is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), the Visual Effects Society (VES) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). His most notable honors include winning Ernst and Young’s 2022 Entrepreneur of the Year Award (for Greater Los Angeles), and the prestigious Paris Images Digital Summit - 2020 GENIE Visionary Award.

Chris is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and began his career at Disney Animation Studios. After five years as a layout artist and character animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation, Chris joined a team of digital artists at Lucasfilm tasked with visualizing Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith from the "third floor" of George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. The company is named after that experience working with George Lucas at his design studio

Sixtine Crutchfield

Art Director of WISe.ART

Sixtine has a wide ranging and storied career in art. She has served as a Project Manager for the Australian Council (Ministry of Culture) where she developed a passion for indigenous art. The projects she was able to carry out in Australia touched on cultural, social and environmental aspects of life in Australia. She spent over a decade as Director of International Art and jewelry fairs throughout Europe. Moreover, Sixtine served as Art Advisor for Private Bank Geneva, and a decade working in and as Director of Art Galerie Jan Krugier. Taking her vast knowledge of the art world, Sixtine authored a new innovative MBA course in Art Management for Geneva Business School that was launched in February, 2022.

She currently serves as the Art Director of WISe.ART, the new platform for entrusted NFT powered by WISe.KEY, a listed company on the Nasdaq and six international stock exchanges, which has specialized for more than twenty years in cyber security. Sixtine is a native of Basel and grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. She was educated in both Europe and the United States.

Michel Steinberger

Founder Marble Arch Fine Arts, Collector

Michel Steinberger, the owner of Marble Arch Fine Arts, is a private art dealer in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Belgium, from an early age Mr. Steinberger’s family instilled in him a deep love of art. Going to art exhibitions and museums wherever they travelled, they also visited artists’ studios and in this way he got to personally know many contemporary artists.

Mr. Steinberger is a graduate of the Solvay Business School at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He emigrated to Los Angeles in 1979 with his family and opened a Diamond trading company. However, throughout his life, his passion was art. In the beginning collecting art was just a hobby, but he ended up becoming an art dealer. Marble Arch Fine Arts was founded in 1988. At first it was an open gallery in West Hollywood then in Beverly Hills, and now it is a private gallery open by appointment only.

Michel Steinberger’s interest in art and collection covers a wide array of periods and schools, from traditional art that includes Old Master paintings ranging from Italian Renaissance, Flemish and Dutch Golden Age (17th century) paintings to 19th century works, to modern art from the first half of the 20th century. In Contemporary Art he developed relationships with many exceptional and talented artists from many countries, some of whom he represents on an exclusive basis. Their works cover a wide range of media, including paintings, prints, sculptures and photography.

Mer al Dao

Co-Founder of Republic of Light — Intercultural Women’s Film Collective

Born in Argentina, Mer al Dao is a highly accomplished storyteller with 80 + short films to her credit. Some of her works have been internationally awarded including at the Black Star Film Festival, Earth Day SF Film Festival, PrideArts Film Fest and many more.

She co-created an intercultural women’s film collective called Republic of Light, all while living nomadically in a school bus traveling through the Americas for 4+ years. The creative experience generated by living, dreaming and filming collectively left a strong imprint on Mer's way of storytelling. Art for her represents a means of transformation. Her art is at once existential, alive, and subterranean; with subtle choices, she reveals the profundity of alternative narratives subverting reality.

MUSIC Jurors

Alexandre Da Costa

Sony Classical artist, Juno Award winner and Quebec National Symphony’s Chief Conductor, Alexandre Da Costa was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Winner of many international prizes, Alexandre Da Costa has been guest soloist and conductor for over two thousand concerts and recitals throughout the Americas, Europe, Oceania and Asia in the major venues of the world such as the Vienna Musikverein, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Madrid Auditorio Nacional, the Sydney Opera House, the Beijing PolyTheater and the New York Carnegie Hall with more than a 100 different orchestras such as the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Prague Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony, the National TV and Radio Orchestra of Spain and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. He currently serves as Artistic Director of the Stradivaria Festival since 2012 and Music Director of the Quebec National Symphony since 2019.

Da Costa has performed alongside acclaimed chamber musicians such as Menahem Pressler, Elisabeth Leonskaja and Olga Kern. As a recording artist, he has more than 28 solo albums under Sony Classical, Warner Classics and Universal Classics. His latest releases Stradivarius at the Opera (recorded with the Vienna Symphony), Stradivarius baROCK and Stradivarius Je me souviens, all attained best seller status. In 2022, he performed and represented Canada in London for the late Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebration.

In addition to his artistic achievements, he is notable for his compassion and drive: during the lockdowns, Da Costa lead his orchestra on tour to bring the warmth of music to hospital patients all over Canada, and galvanized support for artists with iconic projects aimed at bringing the joy of classical music to as many audiences as possible. Alexandre is also known for his weekend morning radio slot discussing classical music on CBC (Radio Canada), and is a regular guest on numerous talk-shows and TV galas.

Ay Young

In 2022, AY Young was appointed as the only United States ‘Youth Leader’ by the United Nations for the global mission ‘Project 17,’ and to Fresh Energy’s 2020 Energy News Network’s ‘40 under 40.’ On a biennial basis the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth recognizes 17 young change-makers between the ages of 19-29, who are leading efforts to catalyze achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). For the UN designation, AY was selected from more than 18,000 nominations from 186 nations. The Energy News Network’s ’40 under 40’ awards program highlights emerging leaders and innovators from across the U.S. and their work in America’s transition to a clean energy economy.

As UN Youth leader for SDGs, AY developed ‘Project 17’ a music album based on United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Each of the 17 songs represent a different goal with features from 17 prominent recording artists. Each song from ‘Project 17’ has a corporate sponsor. Companies including Samsung, Verizon, GM, BNP Parabis Bank, KOKO and ENEL Green Power have all aided in sponsoring a song. ‘Project 17’ has 17 Impact partners to execute the legacy projects that impact the various SDGs. Organizations including EarthX, Reverb, Oceanic Global, the Regeneration, & Simpliphi Power have partnered with AY & the Battery Tour.

While touring the USA, AY learned that globally over 1 billion people lack access to electricity. So AY began powering concerts using renewable energy, raising awareness about sustainability, and fundraising to bring people electricity. Thus, the Battery Tour was born and has plugged in 17 countries to date, while performing over 800 concerts using only battery’s storing energy generated sustainably to power his performance and show production.

AY Young’s Battery Tour is a fresh, imaginative approach uniting musical experience, community development, sustainability education, humanitarian aid, and international cooperation. Battery Tour is a global movement that uses the universal language of music to get people ‘ plugged in’ to sustainability & clean energy solutions.

Gian Berselli

Gian Berselli was born and raised in Brazil. He is an award nominated music producer, composer and the founder of Astral Wolf Music Studios in San Francisco and Wanderer Music in Beijing. His passion for music led him to travel across the world in the pursuit of gaining a deeper appreciation for various form of music. He has over a decade of experience as a film composer and music producer.

Gina has an undergraduate degree in Media Studies from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, in Brasil and a Master in Fine Arts in Music for Visual Media at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. Additionally, he received a Certificate in Sound, Music, and Voice in the Healing Arts by the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Gian has produced over 15 albums, worked on more than ten feature films, two television series, many TV commercials for clients like Cristiano Ronaldo, Nissan, Mercedes Benz and shorts as a film composer. As a music producer he has reached number three on the New Age Charts Worldwide. In the film industry, his works have been featured multiple times at the Cannes Film Festival, the All True Documentary Festival, and at Chinese festivals for works he has written for the Chinese film industry. He is also founder and CEO of Papaya, a blockchain platform that allows artists to create coins that represent a part of their intellectual property, giving musicians more control over their own creation.

Hatim Belyamani

In 2012, inspired to celebrate his roots, Hatim Belyamani founded Remix ⟷ Culture, a non-profit organization that bridges cultural divides through the transformative power of traditional music, film, and remix. Hatim and his team traverse the globe, capturing the sights and sounds of underrepresented musical traditions, which they share for free online under a Creative Commons license.

Hatim – aka HAT – unites artists in an ever-evolving audiovisual dance between traditional music and digital remix art. In his one-of-a-kind live show, HAT is as an orchestra conductor beaming traditional musicians from the four corners of the world onto a big screen, and shaping them harmoniously into new electro beats.
Growing up in Morocco, surrounded by sounds of the country’s Arabic, Amazigh, and Sub-Saharan African origins, Hatim was an award-winning classical pianist and guitarist before finding his voice in electronic music. HAT’s performances are a live remixing of these videos, seamlessly blending the traditional with the experimental – acoustic trance with electronic dance – connecting his audiences to distant cultures in a unique audiovisual journey. HAT has performed at various festivals and venues around the world, notably at Chicago’s Millennium Park Summer Music Series where he opened for the legendary Femi Kuti , Habibi Festival and Lincoln Center in NYC, Roskilde Festival in Denmark, WOMEX in Spain, and Rec Beat Festival in Brazil.

The project has received increasing acclaim since its inception, in countless print, TV, radio, and online media outlets. Hatim is currently based in NY, preparing new collaborations with underrepresented traditional musicians, filmmakers, and remix artists.

Marco Matute

Marco Matute is a music producer that has devoted significant energy to working with the United Nations Symphony Orchestra, serving as a producer for the ensemble to help promote the mission of the Permanent Forum of Indigenous People’s Issues at the UN. The UN recently commissioned an opera by Peruvian composer Dante Valdez, “El Condor Pasa: Andean Hope,” with Marco producing both an audio and video recording with 100% of the proceeds focused on children education in an autonomous mountain region of Ecuador.

Marco opened his boutique record label M27 in 2003. Notable artists that M27 has produced include Hilton Ruiz, Yomo Toro, Dave Valentin, Bob Crenshaw, Dick Griffin, Lew Soloff and Dafins Prieto. The M27 team have mixed and mastered for Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, Sting, Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys and many other well-established artists.

Born in Tela, Honduras, Marco grew up emersed in choir at school, the community and in the church. As a high school sophomore, he was awarded a vocal scholarship by the Vocal Arts Foundation based in New York. Following his passion and opportunity Marco moved to New York City where he studied voice under Richard Dorr and acting at the William Esper Studio.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a classical composer, citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. His commissioned works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Colorado Ballet, and many more.

Tate is a 2022 Chickasaw Hall of Fame inductee, a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from The Cleveland Institute of Music and was appointed 2021 Cultural Ambassador for the U. S. Department of State. He is Guest Composer, conductor, and pianist for San Francisco Symphony’s Currents Program, Thunder Song: American Indian Musical Cultures, and was recently Guest Composer for Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar Program, Home with ETHEL and Friends, featuring his commissioned work Pisachi (Reveal) for String Quartet.

Tate has held Composer-in-Residence positions with the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA, the Joyce Foundation/American Composers Forum, and Grand Canyon Music Festival Native American Composer Apprentice Project, among others. Tate was the founding composition instructor for the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy. In addition to his work based upon his Chickasaw culture, Tate has worked with the music and language of multiple tribes.

Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program recipient, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award recipient, a governor-appointed Creativity Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma and an Emmy Award-winner for his work on the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority documentary, The Science of Composing.

Tate earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and his Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music. He has performed as First Keyboard on the Broadway national tours of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon and been a guest pianist and accompanist for the Colorado Ballet, Hartford Ballet, and numerous ballet and dance companies.