'welkom2r'dam'
by laurie halsey brown

Starts 10th October 2004 at http://www.variablemedia.org
Further information at http://www.variablemedia.info
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Variablemedia is pleased to announce it's latest residency
'welkom2r'dam' by laurie halsey brown. Beginning 10th October 2004 and
running for three months, this project will be updated regularly at
www.variablemedia.org.

Rotterdam has branded itself, City of Architecture. It's official
tourist web site (www.rotterdam.info) presents the city as a beacon of
architectural innovation, which expresses the nature of the city: "The
skyline is a good indicator of how dynamic Rotterdam is. Nearly every
month, another new building rises to redefine the cityscape."
'welkom2r’dam' addresses this idea, that a city's architecture is
inherent to it's identity.

'welkom2r’dam' combines language and design strategies common to tourist
web sites with an evolving weblog containing image and video links. The
artist, who is currently residing in Rotterdam, will articulate her
evolving relationship to the city's environment whilst addressing the
implications of representations of architecture. Throughout the project
she will also pose direct questions and express thoughts on experiences
of architecture. Visitors to the site can respond to these via e-mail
and the responses will then be added to the project. 'welkom2r’dam' has
the potential to address a wider experience of architecture and notions
of "The City" which are not just specific to Rotterdam.

laurie halsey brown is an intra-disciplinary artist and
hybrid-practitioner from New York presently based in Rotterdam in the
Netherlands. Her current practice investigates notions of place, and
psychological and experiential relationships to space. These projects
articulate experiences of and reactions to urban architectures.
'welkom2r’dam' is part of a larger intra-disciplinary project
'[:beingthere.v2.r’damARCH.04:]'. Her studio is at
www.movinginplace.net. Previous exhibitions and projects include: 'Coded
Cultures: Decoding Digital Cultures' (Feiraum, Vienna), 'World Views'
(New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York), 'beingthere.v01.squat.03'
(TENT and CBK Gallery, Rotterdam), 'laurie halsey brown and Jean West'
(Catalyst Arts, Belfast). She exhibited work at this years 'Biennial
Bucharest' and in the 'Biennale of Electronic Arts', Perth, Australia.

'welkom2r’dam' is Variablemedia's thirteenth virtual residency. Artists
Michelle Deignan and Simon Goodwin created variablemedia.org in 2001 as
a space in which to explore place, process, and temporality. Deignan and
Goodwin are co-ordinating a series of artists' web projects made
specifically for the www.variablemedia.org site. Artists occupy the
site's space for a period of between one and three months. This empty
space is available for them to change, update and add to during their
project's run. The site presents the artists' work in an unmediated
form; all explanatory material and archives are held at
www.variablemedia.info.

Following 'welkom2r’dam' at www.variablemedia.org, will be a project by
the architect and visual artist Pierre Larauza who works in Paris, Hong
Kong and Brussels. This project will begin January 9th 2005. For more
information email info@variablemedia.info.