Amanda Palmer commands attention. The singer-songwriter-blogger-provocateur, known for pushing boundaries in both her art and her lifestyle, made international headlines this year when she raised nearly $1.2 million via Kickstarter (she’d asked for $100k) from nearly 25,000 fans who pre-ordered her new album, Theatre Is Evil.
 
But the former street performer, then Dresden Dolls frontwoman, now solo artist hit a bump the week her world tour kicked off. She revealed plans to crowdsource additional local backup musicians in each tour stop, offering to pay them in hugs, merchandise and beer per her custom. Bitter and angry criticism ensued (she eventually promised to pay her local collaborators in cash). And it's interesting to consider why. As Laurie Coots suggests: "The idea was heckled because we didn't understand the value exchange -- the whole idea of asking the crowd for what you need when you need it and not asking for more or less."

Summing up her business model, in which she views her recorded music as the digital equivalent of street performing, she says: “I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them.”

Amanda's non-fiction book, The Art of Asking, digs deeply into the topics she addressed in her TED Talk. 

Jherek Bischoff has collaborated with the likes of Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can, David Byrne and Neil Gaiman, and he has performed in venues and festivals around the globe including Royal Albert Hall for BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Adelaide Festival and Tasmania's MONA FOMA. His work as a composer has garnered commissions from Kronos Quartet, Lincoln Center, and St Ann's Warehouse and has been performed by Seattle Symphony, Adelaide Art Orchestra, Wordless Music, Stargaze and yMusic.

His critically-acclaimed releases include 2016's Cistern, 2012's Composed, and a co-release in 2016 with Amanda Palmer, Strung Out In Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute. He has been interviewed by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air" and by Jonathan Ross for BBC Radio 2's "Arts Show". In 2014, Bischoff made his musical scoring debut with Johnny Breitwieser at Vienna's Schauspielhaus; in 2015, Bischoff ventured into television, contributing work to Starz' "Blunt Talk" and Netflix's "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp."

Bischoff was the artist in residence for the month of August for Times Square's Midnight Moment, where his video for "Cistern" was broadcast every night on Times Square's electronic billboards, culminating in two live performances in the middle of Times Square. He is currently working on his next musical score for Theater Basel's production of "Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer," which premieres in December, and a collaborative album with Kronos Quartet.

Usman Riaz is the founder of Mano Animation Studios -- Pakistans first hand-drawn animation studio. Their first project, The Glassworker (شیشہ گر), was created by a team of creatives from Pakistan, Malaysia, Canada, South Africa, the US and the UK.