EVA London 2025 Keynote Speakers

Sarah Cook

Sarah Cook is Professor in Museum Studies at the University of Glasgow and has for 25 years been a curator of new media and digital art, researching histories of systems and information-based art. She is currently a Guest Professor in AI and Art at Umeå University, Sweden, where she is curating exhibitions for Bildmuseet, most recently the AI-driven work Machine Auguries by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

Sarah has curated over 50 exhibitions worldwide for venues including Somerset House, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Eyebeam in New York, and Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico. She has held research fellowships with the Tate and the Banff New Media Institute, and for six years co-curated the programme at Scotland’s NEoN digital arts festival. Her research interests encompass AI, database-driven work, and art and science collaborations.

Peter Richardson

Peter Richardson is Professor of Creative Industries and Vice Dean of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Performing & Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is an experienced Principal Investigator in the field of cinematic visual effects and virtual production with a portfolio of funded projects worth over £10 M. He is currently Co-Investigator of the £51.1 M CoSTAR National Lab, the UK’s R&D lab for creative technology based at Pinewood Studios.

A Fine Art graduate of Goldsmiths College, University of London, he previously spent 20 years in the film industry directing music videos, commercials, operas, immersive and experimental documentaries. He is co-author of the 2021 VP skills report, Virtual Production: A Global Innovation Opportunity for the UK. Recently, Peter’s Virtual Production over 5G demonstrator was nominated for a Screen International Global Production Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Pita Arreola

Pita Arreola is a London-based curator and co-founder of Off Site Project, a curatorial platform that, through exhibitions, events, and residencies, promotes international new media talent. Through her independent practice, Pita has supported the work of over two hundred artists from across the UK, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the USA, and Latin America.

She was Curator of Digital Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2021 to 2024. In this role, she generated projects to produce new knowledge around historical artworks from the digital art collection and links between pioneering and emerging generations of artists. She is co-editor of Digital Art: 1960s to Now (V&A/Thames & Hudson, 2024), a book that showcases the rich global history of digital art told with a focus on the V&A’s collection.

Jose Montemayor Alba

Jose Montemayor Alba is a Mexico-based Creative Director, Multidisciplinary Designer, and XR Developer exploring the synergy between immersive media, storytelling, and transformative education.

As the CEO and co-director of The Cyberdelic Nexus, an interdisciplinary platform at the intersection of technology, art, and altered states of consciousness, he leads initiatives that foster innovation, creativity, and a more humane relationship with technology. Within this platform, he co-directs The Cyberdelic Society, a cultural hub exploring transformative gaming and cyberdelic technologies; Cyberdelic Labs, a space for cutting-edge research, development, and experimentation; and Cyberdelic Academy.