Carly Whitaker is an independent curator, researcher, artist, and lecturer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a BA Fine Arts, a MA in Digital Interactive Media, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Reading in the UK focusing on curatorial networked methodologies in South Africa. Whitaker has many years of teaching experience in a variety of fields focusing on HCD, creative technologies and digital design. Through this, she has gained extensive knowledge and a range of design research practices which she incorporates into her own research. Whitaker has participated in numerous exhibitions at art spaces in Johannesburg, Freiburg, Casablanca, Miami and Sao Paulo. Through her practice she engages in a constant exploration of how we communicate through media and the ways we use technology to create dialogues, form connections between ourselves and the digital space. Noteworthy curatorial projects include Floating Reverie, an online digital residency programme, which has been running for over six years and Blue Ocean an online digital project space that started in 2020. Whitaker is currently the Curatorial Director of the TMRW Gallery a mixed realities workshop based in Johannesburg. Whitaker is interested in the positioning of this as artistic research and investigating how artists can develop a practice online through and with the medium.