Trained both as an architect (graduated from Architecture University of Lisbon, 2000) and as an artist (finished MA Fine Arts, Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, 2006) the works I produce are investigations on the possibility of enhancing hidden dimensions of space.

This means to acknowledge the relation between the potential embedded in physical space to arouse different/multiple/infinite perceptions of the same space, and our inbuilt mechanisms of perception and assessment of reality; the intricate interaction between both is, in my view, responsible for the emergence of those recondite territories. In other words, I work with the principles of intuition and discourses, which act upon the body in actual space.

Within this framework I have developed the notion of constructive paintings to investigate the potential of painterly representations to challenge architecture, by mobilizing its strength to construct and deconstruct space, both physical space and represented space. Painting has the power to alter/subvert the properties of the built environment: a wall, which is known to be a solid element can be liquefied by means of painting. I work with both painting and constructive materials as media that allow from embodied, to fluid, to barely visible existences; from explicit presence to invisibility.

At the same time I approach painting as a constructive process similar to building architecture, from a two-dimensional design to an object. I explore this issue by defining a process of building images by layering. The layering process starts by defining representations of space (computer 3D images, topographic maps, etc.), developing further until it becomes tactile (painterly surfaces), achieving the character of substance (objecthood).

Painting, more then a form of mimicking reality, renders visible potential realities. It does so in a logic of its own but not disconnected from reality. I see painting as a form of legitimizing the existence of spaces beyond the physical spatiality we might inhabit. The surface of the picture plane works as an independent ontological territory that attests for the credibility of the places I ‘build’.

BIOGRAPHY: KRISTINA MATOVIC

Perpetually seduced by the 4 dimensional and captivated by light; immersive environments have evolved. Concerned with the conception and representation of the future - projects investigate the social and psychological ramifications of the evolution of technology and aspire to assist in the positive reconstruction there of. Environments exist and are experienced in the threshold between the external and internal, real and virtual.

Having studied as a graphic designer at Monash University Melbourne, Kristina Matovic devoted her 4^th year to the research and development of META_ME, or later know as ISTGAMN (inflatable seat that glows and makes noise). This project was concerned with the negotiation of duel realities and manifest as a seating ‘device’ that utilized methods of physical isolation. META_ME was shown at Technikunst: Flesh vs Machine and further exhibitions and collaborations developed including: Two Point Two, Nextwave – Containers Project and the opening of Liquid Architecture 7.

Color Change

first step: to be continued ......

In Between

This is my official start into the transitlounge season. I quit Tzannes Associates last Friday to start concentrating on ideas and organizing the move. Interestingly I had to give a short talk at my firm before I left focussing on what inspires me- I chose the topic of the in-between and showed images of works by Rachel Whiteread(negation of space-see image above), Rebecca Horn(installation between art and space), Zaha Hadid(translating painting into architecture), Peter Zumthor(combining sensuality and spaces), Daniel Libeskind(in between the lines), Sydney(in between sea and land) and Berlin(the perfect space, environment and frame for everyone in-between). These inspirations are vital for my works and I gain my energy from being in between two places and disciplines and a constant change. Exploring this situation further will hopefully lead me to a more specific theme for next year.....

The lead-up to Transit Lounge

With this first post, I would like to give a bit of a background to who I am, and what I am looking forward to most about being involved in Transit Lounge.
I'll start with where I am at the moment. I'm currently living in Sydney, Redfern to be exact, and working four days a week to earn enough money to get a plane ticket and live overseas for a few months next year.
With the rest of my time I try to work on my art. It's not an ideal set-up, which makes the incentive of next year's residency even more enticing.
I have deferred a Master's degree in visual arts so I have the possibility of working, thinking and writing in my own time.
I am looking forward to the learning experience that I expect working on Transit Lounge will provide me. What interests me most about this, is the collaborative process, and working with people who might have a totally different approach to thinking about and creating art.
I think that Berlin is the perfect backdrop for a project looking at transit in a virtual and physical sense: its itinerant population has transformed it into one big transit lounge.

INTRODUCTION

Tickets booked, final grant applications in, all artists confirmed. Looks like we are all set to go for Transit Lounge Berlin 2007. A few changes from last year - we now have 16 participants, including 8 Germans. And this year, half the participants are architects.

Like last year, the blog is the virtual lounge; a place for all of us participants to discuss the themes, record observations and develop work in public. Its here that we can exchange words and images with the people we'll eventually be working with. But we're keen to take the blog beyond this - delving into topics somehow related to the theme Transit Lounge. To help us with that, Sarah Thompson + Alma-Elisa Kittner will take over the moderation of the blog for a month each. Sarah is keen to focus on the process of collaboration, while Alma will delve into issues of tourism, and in between , I want to develop my current obsession: transnational identities, migrations and nomadic lives.

BIOGRAPHY: GOVINDA LANGE

Govinda Lange is a composer, producer, DJ and audiovisual artist based in Canberra, Australia, who works under the pseudonym of Defunkt. His projects have included soundtracks for short films, animations, contemporary dance pieces, and live audiovisual performances. He is frequently found carting AV equipment into unusual spaces at odd times.

Govinda incorporates a mixture of organic rhythms, coupled with snatches of live field recordings, creating evolving soundscapes that conspire to bring listeners into a nostalgic and evocative headspace.

He has performed at many festivals and events in Australia, including Loud Is Boring, Canberra in 2006; Electrofringe, Newcastle in 2005; Canberra Fringe Festival in 2004; eXXentricity, Canberra in 2003; St Kilda Festival, Melbourne in 2002; going as far back as the Panopticon Conspiracy, Canberra in 1995. As an event supervisor, he has assisted in the coordination of the Collabrador space at Electrofringe in 2005; and the Melbourne Big Day Out, since 2002.

Recent work includes Gnostalgia, a collaborative improvised AV performance with the RTFM visual artists, presented at The Front Gallery in Canberra, as part of Loud Is Boring; field recordings of, and synthesis of, insect sounds for an animation work by Neville Black; and the development of a networked audiovisual piece with Tim O'Loghlin, incorporating live video feeds from around the globe.

BIOGRAPHY: BEN MILBOURNE

ben is an urbanist, and for better or worse a globalist. he is not convinced it is a good idea, but he masterplans large and small parts of cities for cultures not his own, quite often for people he has never met and places he has never been.

the ever expanding international design competition system, a decade or more of foreign architect urban experimentation in china and increasingly the middle-east, local urban design for larger projects has been superseded in favor of google-earth urbanism.

ben has worked in europe and australia on projects in beijing, moscow, st petersberg, chang-sha, dubai, paris, jeddah, the hague, nanjing, hamburg, lausanne, the cape verde islands, goa, london, sydney and claims no definitive approach for intervening in contemporary urban conditions, rather argues for urban design strategy rich with programmatic complexity and juxtaposition, flexibility for organic growth, change and local invention during implementation.

ben is currently employed at lab architecture studio as a design architect working on a variety of projects in china, india and the middle east. prior to joining lab ben worked for the office for metropolitan architecture/rem koolhaas in rotterdam. ben graduated from sydney university's bachelor of architecture program with first class honors in 2002 and has been working in architectural practice since 2000.

BIOGRAPHY: ANNA TAUFEST

Anna is a young architect from Berlin. She began studies at the Technical University of Munich in 1998 and was part of the curators and directors team for the multimedia project Kino24 from 1999 - 2001 at the Gloria Filmpalast at Stachus in Munich. Her studies were continued at the Berlin University of the Arts and the ETSAV in Barcelona. Anna graduated in 2005 with a project called `Conexiòn –Barcelonas connection to the sea´ aiming to re-establish the connection between city and sea at a historical site through an urban intervention. Anna worked for varions architecture firms in Germany as well as for the archplus magazine in Berlin. She co-founded the studio workshop Atelier Ohlauerstr.36. in 2006.

BIOGRAPHY: JODI ROSE

Jodi Rose is a nomadic sound artist, writer and freelance cultural commentator originally from Australia, who works producing audiovisual performance, sound installations, experimental music, radio programs and sonic art events around the world. Jodi trained in Sculpture, Performance and Installation at Sydney College of the Arts, and was the fourth Bridge Guard at the Art and Science Bridge Guard residential centre in Sturovo, Slovakia 2005-2006; and Australia Council New Media Arts - ABC Radio: Radiophonic Artist in Residence at ABC Radio National, Sydney in 2004.

Jodi's major work and reason for traversing the globe so thoroughly in recent years is Singing Bridges, a worldwide networked performance and series of compositions based on the sound of vibrations in bridge cables. Jodi released Singing Bridges: Vibrations and Variations, a CD of bridge compositions with remixes by widely renowned international and local artists working in experimental sound and electronic music; and won ‘Best Australian Blog’ for Singing Bridges Travel Diary in 2005. Her work featured in Pixelache Electronic Arts Festival in 2004 & 2005; Overgaden Sound Art Festival - Copenhagen; Sound States Uncertain Destinations, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; and Sound in Space Audiotheque, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Jodi’s radio projects include Radiophonic Features: Bridge Songs and Stories, a Trip Across Australia broadcast on ABC Radio National Radio Eye in 2004; Archipelago, a 90 minute sonic seascape about ISEA International Symposium of Electronic Arts; and Bridge Guard Radio Diary from her experience in Slovakia, broadcast on ABC Radio National The Night Air; a series on Musique Concrete for Classic FM, and recently hosting a nightly program on TiN Radio for the National Young Writers Festival, she developed the idea for an ongoing series of conversations starting in the Transit Lounge.

BIOGRAPHY: DETLEF JUNKERS, KATHRIN ZöLLER THOMAS BRÜGGEMANN

Detlef Junkers and Kathrin Zöller are both involved in different roles with Junkers & Partners Architects, Berlin since 2003. Their Prices and projects include: State Court, Frankfurt (Oder) 2005, School in Eschbachtal, Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe 2004, Legal Center Magdeburg, in planning, State Consulate of Brbg/ Meckl.-Vorpommern, Berlin commendation, Museum for Fine Arts, Leipzig 2.Price, Holocaust-Memorial Site, Aspang-Wien 2.Price, 1. Price „archi-europe Facade design 2005“, Special commendation „Bauen im Bestand, Hessen 2005“.Thomas Brüggemann was born 1959 in Münster, lives and works in Berlin. Thomas studied at the Kunstakademie Münster with professors Jochen Zellmann and Ulrich Erben, he graduated with his masters in 2006. Examples of solo exhibitions: “in situ“, Stadsgalerij Heerlen, Glaspaleis –“Luz mala“, 2002 Galerie Juliane Wellerdiek, Berlin, 2001 Kunst- und Kulturkreis Berkelkraftwerk, Vreden – “Kulturlandschaft“, Geologisch-Paläontologisches Museum, Münster – “ Von on oben gesehen“

BIOGRAPHY: LARA O'REILLY

Lara O’Reilly’s marked predilection for the sublime and the paradoxical is expressed in a very diverse body of work that has its roots in performance but emphasizes the sculptural and everyday environments of architecture and landscape. Her achievements as a young artist include winning the 2005 National Marten Bequest Travel Scholarship, the 2004 Basil and Muriel Hooper Scholarship from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the recent 2006 National Australian Visual Art emerging artist award.

O’Reilly’s interests in landscape and architecture inform an experience-oriented oeuvre that is cause for reconsidering our relationship with nature. Her work encompasses sculpture, photography, performance, architecture, sound and video. Through her experience both of the places she has seen and the people she has met, and her aim to unearth common ground between extremely diverse groups lies at the base of much of her projects.

O’Reilly’s work is interesting as she dissolves the mediums of art, architecture and film into something that is difficult to title. The cities, places, sceneries that she subjects the viewer to are layered with her body, a ghostly movement through a timeless, slowed stilled landscape of abstracted and layered fragments of dissolved experiences of the body and of architecture. Her works are beautiful, evocative, timeless and interactive in the way they are composed. They resonate spatial qualities of slowed, filmic, moving installations of translucent layered veils suspended within the interiors of galleries or site-specific sites.

BIOGRAPHY: MIRIAM MLECEK

Miriam Mlecek started studying architecture at the Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany where she received the bachelor after two years.During that time she also worked as coordinator and curator at the EXPO 2000 world exhibition in Hanover and for Alsop+Störmer Architects in Hamburg.

Postgraduate studies followed in Sydney, partly architecture at the University of Sydney, partly arts at the Sydney College Of the Arts. During her time overseas she started to be more and more involved in multimedia and installation art.The Advanced Art Student Exhibition at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, featured her web design work “public/private” in 1999. She participated at several art workshops supervised by local artists to become tutor herself for the interdisciplinary workshop “superstudio” which took part at the University of Sydney in 1999. Outcome was the performance “The Australian Oasis”.

In 2000 she decided to continue with a master program at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany. During her time in Berlin she won the first prize in an art in context competition in Frankfurt/O. with a light installation work , planned an audio installation for the Vitra Design Museum, Berlin, took part in several exhibitions representing the University of the Arts in 2001/2002 and finished her education with the final project “in Transit” in the art class of Rebecca Horn in 2003. She won a first prize in a art in context competition inpublic space/Berlin and a third prize for a town planning competition of the city of Berlin.In 2004 she worked for Utz-Sanby architects in Sydney,being the project architect for several residential projects and an interior design for a Paddington restaurant.She won the 5^th price for her essay “In Transit” at the Wilhelm-Braun-Feldweg Price for designcritical texts and founded Exquisite Corpse Inc. with Katie Hepworth in 2005.Their first exhibition was held in the “blank space” gallery in Surry Hills, Sydney in April 2005.Together with Katie Hepworth she founded the “transitlounge” studio and gallery, an artist-in-residency project in Berlin in 2006, which she curated and took part in the exhibition with her work “zwei räume”. She currently works with Tzannes Associates in Sydney.

BIOGRAPHY: KATIE HEPWORTH

Based in Sydney, Berlin and…Katie is an artist and architect. She is interested in our interactions in public and private space, and the ways in which the disruption of these everyday behaviours can lead to a reappraisal of the urban experience. Her work aims to expose the latent conditions in the environment, the things that are taken for granted, something which is achieved by staging events and insertions, both small and large.

She is currently working on a research project, looking at how temporary art events and installations can be used as a catalyst for urban development and renewal. She is interested in ways in which spaces are transformed into identifiable places.

For the last 6 years Katie has been traversing the globe. Leaving behind and finding old friends again. This transnational existance, was the inspiration for the Transit Lounge, which she is currenlty curating with Miriam Mlecek.

BIOGRAPHY: SARAH THOMPSON

Sarah Thompson is Development Manager for Enter_, a creative network that brings together artists, researchers and businesses working at the intersection of art and new technology in the East of England. From April 25-29 2007, Sarah will be involved in producing Enter_Unknown Territories, a new international conference and festival celebrating new technology art, which will take place in public areas in and around Cambridge.

Sarah has previously worked at the British Film Institute, London, and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology [FA CT], Liverpool, where she held roles within the Exhibitions and Events teams.

Before leaving Sydney in 2004, Sarah worked as a freelance arts and design journalist whilst completing a BA Communications [Hons] at the University of Technology, Sydney. Sarah currently lives in London.

BIOGRAPHY: ALMA-ELISA KITTNER

Alma-Elisa Kittner is an arts historian from Berlin, Germany. After studying art history, communication and Modern German Literature in Munich and Rome she continued with art history and Modern German Literature in Bochum, Germany.

In 2005 she wrote the concept for a congress on “Topology Of Travel” in Trier at the Centre for Postcolonial and Gender Studies (CePoG), was published in the “Volksbühne Berlin” brochure on “Utopic Body Concepts” and did research work in Paris with Harald Szeeman. She is also a writer and lector for the Westerweide Publishing Company and was chief editor of the k&m magazine (‘art and material’).

She is currently curating Contest of the Arts, a series of talks in Berlin on media, event-strategies and tourism involving artists + theorists from various European countries.

She has a long-standing interest in tourism, and is currently working on a project on art and tourism in Berlin while she has a stipend at the International Research Training Group “Interart Studies” as a post-doc academic at the Free University Berlin.

BIOGRAPHY: SILVIA MARZALL

Installation/Video

Silvia Marzall, born 1980 in Brasília, grew up in Brasil and Italy. She lives and works in Germany and Brasil. Study:2000-06 Fine Arts Master Class with Prof. Christiane Möbus, UdK Berlin.1998-2000 Fine Arts, Universidade Brasília.Grants: 2006-08 Studio grant Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft, Berlin,2003 „Network Baltic”, work-and travel grant, Grafikens Hus, Schweden. Solo exhibitions e.g. „relatio chu chu“, Galeria de Arte Espaço,Brasilien. Group exhibitions u.a. „material world“, Schmidt Galerie, Berlin „Off Copa“, Galerie Berlin Am Meer, „CortaCurtas“, Video- and Filmfestival, São Paulo, Brasilien 2005 „Külakost”, Art Academy, Tallinn, Estland, 2003 „Poesiefestival”, Backfabrik, Berlin. Workshops 2005„Teaching Arts and Gender“ on Baltic Europe, „gender und kultur. das fakultätennetz“.

BIOGRAPHY: VASSILIEA STYLIANIDOU

Vassiliea Stylianidou was born in 1967,in Thessaloniki, Greece. She lives and works in Berlin and Athens.

Following studies of literature and linguistics at the University of Jannina, Greece from 1985-89, she became a student of fine arts at the University of the Arts, Berlin, focussing on new media, video and photography. Her prizes include the AT Kearney video prize and the Meisterschuelerprize of the UdK Berlin in 1999, the Goldrausch 11 Artistproject, Berlin 1999-2001, NaFöG - Postgraduate grant from the University of the Arts Berlin, 2001 DAAD supplementary grant for NYC within the scope of the NaFOEG-postgraduate grant, and several Artist-in-Residence Programs in Europe. Her solo exhibitions include 2005 perpetuum mobile, Galerie Françoise Heitsch, Munich, Playcities Gallery Kappatos, Athens; 2002 Heroes & Co. CAPRI, Berlin; and more recently exhibitions in Germany, Italy and Greece. Amongst numerous international group exhibitions was the 2005 Old Habits Die Hard as part of the exhibition Situation at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, Australia; the Prague Biennale; the CHIANGMAI FIRST NEW MEDIA ART FESTIVAL, CMU ART MUSEUM, Thailand; 2002 and familistère 1 at Kunst-Werke Berlin, Institute for Contemporary Art (C).

BIOGRAPHY: ISABELLE TOLAND

Isabelle completed a Bachelor of Science (Architecture) (Hons.) and Bachelor of Architecture (Hons.) at the University of Sydney. In 2000, she was awarded the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship which she used to undertake a year of research in social housing developments in France, receiving the University Medal for her Honours thesis that resulted from this research.

She is currently working in Paris for Shigeru Ban Architects Europe on a temporary museum constructed from cardboard tubes and shipping containers to be built on a former industrial site.

Isabelle has exhibited installation and design work in numerous galleries both in Australia and overseas. Her installation work Super Cocoon was exhibited in November 2005 as part of the Canberra Biennial of Architecture and Design, and installation Study for a Transportable Room, was exhibited in May 2006 at the Pickled Art Centre in Beijing. Isabelle’s installation works focuses on the idea of temporary /transient /transportable dwelling spaces.

BIOGRAPHY: KENZEE PATTERSON

Kenzee Patterson is an artist from Sydney, Australia. His art practice often incorporates sculpture, photography, video, performance, and installation.

He uses this interdisciplinary approach to examine our relationship to everyday objects and experiences. Through a process of interaction, the seemingly mundane is transformed, revealing a beauty and wondrousness which is rarely noticed.

He has exhibited extensively in Sydney’s artist-run galleries, as well as regional galleries. He has also had work shown in various galleries and festivals in Melbourne, Japan, Iceland, and Paris.

In the first half of 2006, Kenzee undertook an International Exchange at L’École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, in Paris, for which he received the Dyason Bequest from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Artists Exchange Scholarship from Sydney College of the Arts.

In April and May 2007, Kenzee will be participating in the Transit Lounge residency in Berlin. For this, he has been awarded a RUN_WAY Young and Emerging Professional Development grant from the Inter-Arts Office of the Australia Council for the Arts, as well as a Professional Development Travel Grant from the Australian Network for Art and Technology.


This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Supported by ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) through the Professional Development Travel Fund. ANAT is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

BIOGRAPHY: HUGO MOLINE

Hugo Moline is a recent architecture graduate who lives in Sydney. In 2003 Hugo went to the Philippines to work with the Tabaco City Urban and Rural Poor Federation on two collaboratively designed community plans. In 2005 Hugo was awarded the Ethel M Chettle Prize in Architecture from the University of Sydney and went to Istanbul on a Global Studio scholarship to participate in a conference on how designers and the urban poor can work together more effectively. On the way back home he worked with the Homeless People's Federation of the Philippines on the collaborative design of some prototype housing for a community of railway squatters in Manila.

In Australia Hugo has worked together with others on a number of projects that patch together, make good and celebrate the thrown away objects and unwanted spaces of Australian cities. This includes 'what happened to my friends' (Wedding Circle, Sydney), 'All my eye and Biddy Martin' (ChangeX design exhibition, Sydney), and 'warren' (NextWave container village, Melbourne).

BIOGRPAHY: JASPER KNIGHT

Jasper completed a BVA at Sydney College of the Arts(SCA) in 1999 and a Master of Art in 2002 at College of Fine Art (COFA). He has shown since 2001 in every major artist run space in Sydney and is the Director of the Half Dozen ARI (Artist run initiative) that exhibits and supports of 50 emerging artists every year. This year’s festival was held at Gallery 4A, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, The Museum of Sydney, Firstdraft Gallery and the Mckell Building. Jasper’s last Sydney show was painting and installation at Phatspace ARI, Darlinghurst. His first Melbourne show was at Metro 5 Gallery earlier this year and his first solo London show is at the end of 2006. In 2005 and 2006 Jasper has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize, The Wynne Prize, The Abn-Amro Prize and has won the Rocks Emerging Art Prize, The Freedman Foundation Scholarship, the OZCO new work grant, the NAVA Marketing grant and was appointed to the board of the Asia-Australia Art Association earlier this year. Jasper’s main work is enamel mixed-media painting and secondly sculptural installation.

BIOGRAPHY: TANJA KIMME

Tanja is a German photographic and multi-media artist, based in Melbourne, Australia. She grew up in Africa, Indonesia, Peru and Germany. In 1997 Tanja immigrated to Australia, where she studied visual arts, and has consequently lived and worked in Sydney, Berlin, Rotterdam and Melbourne. During the past three years Tanja has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Sydney, Rotterdam, Paris, Chennai and Berlin.

BIOGRAPHY: ROB CURGENVEN

Working with harmonics and resonance as articulated not only through instruments/objects, in space and place, but also in time and the dislocation of the remote, Robert's sound explores slowly shifting layers in the fabric of what surrounds us. He has released one solo CD for privatelektro, "cichaczem" (2005), which was described by "disquiet" magazine as "absolutely beautiful distillations of sound mixing the familiar textures of field recordings, including falling snow and the period after a thunderstorm, with hyper-sensitive recordings of a grand piano that suggest the open spaces only alluded to by most synthesizers". He has completed two commissions for ABC's Radiophonic Unit (2003, 2006), is included on the recent "recorded in the fields by..." compilation by "gruenrekorder" (2006) and his soundtrack to Lezsek Paul's "Terrain der Zeit" has has been included in screenings at Filmfest Dresden, Germany (2006) and Experyment V Internation Art Meeting Zbaszyn,Poland (2005). He organised the inaugural Sounds Unusual Festival of New Music in Darwin this year, has had installations/group exhibtions in Darwin, Fremantle, Koln and Berlin and performed at the Darwin Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, 24HR Art (NT Centro for Contemporary Art), in Alice Springs, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Brussels, Amsterdam, Leipzig and recently at Electrofringe Festival (Newcastle) as well as Tokyo, Gihu and Nagano (Japan).