Artistic Intelligence is pleased to announce the appointment of our new Working Group Vice Leaders.
Working closely with the WG Leaders, they will support in coordinating activities, sharing responsibilities, and ensuring continuity, while gaining valuable leadership experience within the international research network. The role also promotes inclusiveness and capacity building by preparing early-career researchers for future leadership, strengthening collaboration, and actively shape the success and impact of the Artistic Intelligence.
Vice leader positions for WG1 – Adaptation Strategies
MAJELLA CLARKE
Majella Clarke (MMus, MBA, MSc) explores the intersection of art, science, and technology through experimental conducting, in addition to traditional orchestral conducting practices. Her artistic research focuses on compositional materiality, the expansion of conducting practice, and aesthetic implications for ensembles and performance with the aim to investigate how expanded conducting practices including AI and interactive technologies can generate new ensemble “intra-actions”, "entanglements" and musical aesthetics. She is also a scientist with experience in teaching and applying AI/ML in both scientific, business and artistic practice. Majella brings more than 10 years of experience as a strategy consultant working on sustainability, Global Earth Observation Systems, predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence in over 40 countries, with more than seven years of experience as a negotiator and advisor to various delegations to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Her latest artistic projects include: Conducting Water (2025–), an experimental exploration of the material agency of water through embodied conducting, using computer vision, multimodal synthesis, and improvisation for new media, composition, sound art, and performance; The Sonic Baton Project (2023-), a gesture-controlled neural audio synthesis tool originally developed with the Intelligent Instruments Lab Iceland, spanning performances, compositions, sculpture, and dataset albums; and Aromasonics (2025), a system of olfactory notation and aromatic scoring that translates scent properties into musical compositions, premiered on a Magnetic Resonator Piano, integrating improvisation, sound art, algorithms, and chemical principles.
PETER BANNISTER
Peter Bannister is an educator and early career researcher at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Spain, with over a decade of experience across primary, secondary, and tertiary education. As a published scholar with over 30 research outputs and three books under contract with Cambridge University Press and Routledge, Peter's research focuses on the intersection of AI, educational assessment, and social justice. His work addresses critical questions around human-AI interactions in educational settings, academic integrity policy development in the GenAI era, and equitable digital transformation in teacher education- areas directly aligned with ARTinRARE's mission of exploring artistic intelligence through the lens of responsiveness, accessibility, responsibility, and equity. Peter was selected for the COST Leadership Programme, where he received training in research project governance, strategic decision-making, and policy influence at the COST Academy in Brussels. His international profile includes visiting fellowships at Deakin University (Australia) and the University of St Andrews (Scotland), alongside recognition through prestigious awards including the 2025 BJET Fellowship and the Santander Open Academy Award for Doctoral Scientific Research.
His objective is to develop practical frameworks that prevent artistic research from being marginalised by AI's tendency to favour quantifiable data, instead creating pathways for meaningful engagement and contribution to AI development processes. His proven track record in cross-disciplinary collaboration thus far as a young researcher, combined with his expertise in AI applications and commitment to equitable research practices, positions him well to advance Working Group 1's objectives within the ARTinRARE framework. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7216-3912
Vice leader positions for WG3 – REFERENCE FRAMEWORKS
TROND LOSSIUS
Trond Lossius is a professor and Head of PhD at the Faculty of Film, TV, and Games, University of Inland Norway, and Professor II at The Grieg Academy, University of Bergen. He has extensive experience with PhD programmes in artistic research, serving as a supervisor in Norway and Sweden, participating on assessment committees, and working on PhD programme accreditation at several Norwegian institutions. He was a member of the editorial board of VIS Nordic Journal for Artistic Research from 2017 to 2022.
As an artist, Trond Lossius explores the relationships between sound, place, and space through field recordings, audio-visual installations, and collaborative projects that encompass various disciplines. He utilises surround (Ambisonic) microphones to capture the essence of places rather than merely the sounds, with a particular emphasis on suburban sound environments. Lossius also develops open-source software for spatial audio and real-time media to support his projects. His research on sound and music computing has been published in international conferences and journals. He graduated as an artistic research fellow from the Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen, in 2007, and has previously studied music composition at the Grieg Academy, as well as holding an MA in geophysics
Vice leader positions for WG4 – POLICY MAKING AND RECOMMENDATIONS
JOSTEIN GUNDERSEN
Jostein Gundersen (1977) is an associate professor in music performance and Vice Dean of Research at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design. He holds a PhD in Artistic Research from the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, where his research focused on diminutions in polyphonic repertoire from the late Middle Ages to the early Baroque. He taught Historial Improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater «Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy» Leipzig from 2011 to 2022. Gundersen has played a pivotal role in developing artistic research in Norway, as PhD supervisor, PhD programme leader, research school coordinator and currently Head of Board of the National Artistic Research School, member of PhD assessment committees and peer reviewer for the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme as well as for academic conferences and journals.
ZOI EGSTATHIOU
Zoi (Zoe) Efstathiou, pianist and electroacoustic music composer, originally from Greece, is known for her work on expanding the timbral possibilities of the piano. She holds a Master in Improvisation from the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg and an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma (Soloist) in Composition from the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. She also holds a Bachelor degree in Mathematics from Lund University, awarded with distinction, that includes advanced courses in machine learning.
Her music has been performed at Nordic Music Days Festival, A L'Arme Festival, Onassis Cultural Center, Levande Musik, Only Connect, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Monopiano Festival, Copenhagen Piano Festival, Samtida Musik, Alice, The Nordic Embassies Berlin, Njord Festival, among others. Currently, she is a Research Fellow in Artistic Research at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
