Transformers: Coiled Potentials

TRANSFORMERS
COILED POTENTIALS
TRANSFORMERS
COILED POTENTIALS
CURATED BY
ANETTE SCHÄFER AND MILES CHALCRAFT
AT E L I E R H O F K R E U Z B E R G, B E R L I N
J U LY 2 1 – A U G U S T 1 0 , 2 0 1 2
A TRANSART INSTITUTE MFA EXHIBITION
Atelierhof Kreuzberg
Schleiermacherstraße 31-37
10961 Berlin Germany
www.atelierhof-kreuzberg.com
www.trampoline-berlin.de
______________________________
Copyright © 2012 Transart Institute
All rights reserved
All artwork and photographs copyrighted by each artist / photographer unless otherwise noted
______________________________
A print version of this catalogue can be ordered at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jcriscola
4
Essay by Miles Chalcraft
11
ARTISTS
12
Sonia E Barrett
14
Paula Billups
16
Livia Daza-Paris
18
Lark Gilmer-Smothermon
20
Daniel Marchwinski
22
Eto Otitigbe
24
Alessandro Sau
26
Dianne Smith
28
Stephan Takkides
30
Andrew Teheran
32
Andrew Telichan
34
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
39
2010 – 2012 Credits
40
About Transart Institute
CONTENTS
TRANSFORMERS
COILED POTENTIALS
W E A R E T R A N S F O R M E R S, alchemists at play, steeped in the
fumes of our reflections, turning base experience into something
more desirable.
We are the arbiters of potential, conjurers of resistance, stepping up the
VOLTAGE from one set of coiled emotions to another, spinning up just
enough power to transmit our story across the globe. We are hard-wired
components straddling our past and our future, turning our personal
histories, mythologies, cultural genetics and ethnic dynasties into the
future stories we want to tell about ourselves.
We are Metal Monsters, adaptable and contractable, expandable and
expendable. Iron courses through the pipes which run through our
bodies and when we give birth our young are plugged into our insides
through sockets in their bellies. We are wired from head to foot; electric
pulses leap the myriad sparking gaps to charge the pump that draws the
oxygen in to feed the power-plants which reside in every tiny part of us.
When we fall to the ground, the contacts finally corroded, the motion
frozen, the plants cooling, we are recycled, pitilessly.
We are survivors. When our body breaks, we can take from our
environment a facsimile of the damaged part, and in its substitution, find
a new voice or a new way of moving.
We are wilful. We take up the things we have made and smash them; no
one will stop us. Not ire or anguish, but it’s explosive. We find novel ways
of putting the pieces back together, drawing on help from unexpected
quarters, using new adhesives that even to us are untraditional, and it
works. A thing reborn, embedded in the body of a new thing, with all the
traces of its journey revealed.
We are shape shifters. We choose a people and copy them. They have
something we recognize and we desire to become like them, learning
their ways, their skills, sharing their food and their stories. At some
point, we are no longer outsiders, transformed into an individual that
6
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 G R A D U AT E M FA E X H I B I T I O N
is part of the tribe. It’s important that we remember, though, that we
evolved into this. Painstakingly, we capture the rituals and individuals for
another time, perhaps for when we have forgotten a transformation ever
took place.
We are nomads. We can’t settle because there is an empty space
ahead of us where no foot has trodden. There are questions that need
answering and perhaps the answer lies here. As nomads, we have
carried our histories of tragedies and comedies with us and unless we
exchange these stories they will be lost and all those mistakes will be
made again in the place where no Transformer foot has set down.
Like those green plants, we have transformed our world. We have
transformed our world for others.
We have tried to change the world. We have tried to change it for
others. We were confused when all our efforts were ignored, but later
we saw this was a strength. So we created myths that exaggerated our
triumph, and when the lie was swallowed we were resplendent in our
Transformer scorn.
We are weavers. We found a raw filament snagged on a bush.
Idly, we twisted it, stretched it, joined it and discovered Technology.
Then, with eyes glazed in automatic zeal, we shuttled back and forth
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 G R A D U AT E M FA E X H I B I T I O N
7
at ever increasing speeds, the thread stitching words together with the
broken-off pieces of our surroundings, rendering an entirely new story
for ourselves.
We are levellers, the crushers of mountains. With cable-veined limbs, we
have hewn the things from a childish past now bereft of mystery and
fashioned the fragments afresh, building piles to waymark a path back
from the unfamiliar landscape left in our turbulent wake.
Imperfect, we are chrysalids, still becoming, our colours not yet fast.
Stumbling, we have mirrored our indistinct faces in stock photographs,
our loath hands too numbed to fashion butterfly scales, and mumbling,
the words too thick on our bloated tongues to flow easily into lazy
ears. If we emerge, we will be beautiful but fragile, the faintest touch
springing our metalled plates in a mineburst.
This is our time of change.
Here, in this moment of revelation, this patch of clarity, something has
frozen and gelled and can be examined. A slurry of material, collecting
in the depths of our lives, has been condensed through a lens of
subjective filtering, intellectual reasoning and technical endeavour into
this residue. This small nugget of something glistening we can now
stand back from, setting it aside from the detritus that once obscured
8
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 G R A D U AT E M FA E X H I B I T I O N
it, pulling it apart from the rhizome that once fed it. There is just enough
breathing space to take a considered look and contemplate what it
might mean and whether we have indeed found ‘gold,’ before the murk
of experience rekindles our doubts and awakens our thirst for truth or
poetry once again.
We invite you to look through our loupe.
M I L E S C H A L C R A F T, 2 0 1 2
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 G R A D U AT E M FA E X H I B I T I O N
9
ARTISTS
12
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
SONIA E BARRETT
F U R N I S H E D I S A S E R I E S of sculptures constructed using 18th
and 19th Century wooden dining table and chair limbs. This “HerrenZimmer” furniture or “Queen Anne style” is typified by the inclusion
of the depiction of lion’s feet. The furniture had been disassembled
and re-arranged. The work is concerned with how ingrained nonrelationships are in the structure of our lives and the historical and
political context that enabled whole nations to start to enter into
servitude or receive service. It considers what we might see if we
started to look at those relationships, and what it might be like to exist
in a crucial but marginal role. This series of work explores this ability to
overlook others whilst simultaneously allowing them to facilitate our
lives. The artist’s intention is to symbolise the complexity and conflict
of such a relationship through her work, and evoke a sense unease and
mindfulness concerning the bond between the user and the used.
above Table Number One, 2012
Metal table top, antique wooden wheeled table legs, rope, sheeps intestines, styrofoam
59 cm x 50 cm x 89 cm
Table Number Seven, 2012
Antique wooden table legs and top, metal hooks, fasteners and sliding mechanisms
163 cm x 90 cm x 73 cm
opposite page
left
Detail Table Number Seven
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
13
PAULA BILLUPS
I H A V E F O U N D that connecting to human predicaments
in human terms is the most powerful way to explore art and
meaning. Smoke in the Mask investigates the unbridgeable
gap of experience that exists between the audience and the
performer, and their reliance on that gap as a catalyst for
the essential experience of Show. I highlighted this gap by
working with friends who are fire performers because their
elemental medium simultaneously attracts and warns away.
Held apart and bound together in a mysterious exchange,
audience and artist share in performance a kind of
existential healing. The beauty and primacy of the medium
of fire informed my approach in creating the paintings.
The simplicity of a fire performance, its elemental basis and
its ancient origins, and the mastery of the Chauvet painters
influenced me to work in the most essential terms. Having
long favored a limited “dead” palette, I limited it further to
colors available 20,000 years ago. I eliminated other things.
I found that if I worked in oil bars I could paint with a direct
gesture, so the palette, brushes, turpentine, and oil went
away. I stopped working with canvas and easels, and used
brown paper, working directly on the wall. These reductions
never hindered my vision or productivity. On the contrary,
they enhanced it. Leaving the canvas for paper restored
my ability to work at a proper size. Leaving the brushes
gave me a fast-curing pigment I could transport easily in
a shorter time. In giving up most of what I had, I received
everything I needed.
My tribe is the fire spinning community in and around
Boston. These are my fire family, who helped me see
this project to fruition with their generous participation.
My heartfelt thanks to my fire family and to the Transart
community for being there when it counts and for letting
me be there for you.
Burn bright!
14
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
opposite page Laa, 2012
Oil on paper
61cm x 132cm
Terrence 2.0, 2012
Oil on paper
78cm x 119cm
left
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
15
LIVIA DAZA-PARIS
AT THE EDGE OF THE (FAR-) END investigates the
autobiographical embedded within the larger
context of human-rights themes. Working with my
body and a camera as witness, I search for the
body of my father, disappeared by the state. Guided
by the feminist premise that "the personal is
political," “I” becomes evidence and “self” is where
the story resides--indeed I am the only irrevocable
proof of my father's existence. Aesthetically, this
work plays with visual pacing, spatial relatedness,
cadence of movement and cadence of thought.
Conceptually, it explores how something deep
and elusive in the body, such as complicated grief,
might be made visible.
Poetic devices became an essential aid to
investigate a fragmented story embedded in a
larger context of historical events omitted from
official records. The fundamental question is: in the
absence of a mourning ritual when a loved one is
disappeared by the state, how do those left behind
cope with their own grief under conditions of silence
and clandestinity and how does it shape their lives?
The work is formed by a series of physical and
written poems during my search for the remains of
my father. They are not only a documentation of my
quest, but were guidance along my journey’s path,
whether through the landscapes of land, society
or memory. In this sense, the poetics have been
a compass on my quest for truth and evidence.
At the edge of the (far-) End is an investigative
document of poetics that delves into notions of
love and courage, to give tribute to an ideological
humanist integrity of the Venezuelan resistance
16
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
movement of the 1960s. Underlying the project are
universal inquiries of inter-subjectivity in apparently
isolated human experiences of geopolitical events.
At the Edge of the (far-) End: Investigative Poetic Documentary, Venezuela, May 2012
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
17
LARK GILMER-SMOTHERMON
LIP-SYNCHING WITH MOTHER NATURE
I T S E E M S , of late, that I am always looking in the rear view mirror — moving, nomadic.
The one constant is the land — remaining connected to and grounded.
The work is more about a dialogue the land has with me — than what I have to say
about it. It is more about what it wants to tell me — what is important to know. Some
are simply hopeful whispers while others need tending to now. Now, this minute. Just
like you can tell when animals need attention — the land also speaks. And, this dialogue
seems to translate itself into the words woven into it’s landscape.
This work comes from a very primitive, instinctive, intuitive place. It reflects the language
of the community in which I live. It is temporal. It is vital.
18
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
opposite page Grass Text: GENUG O, Laurin, 2011
Hand-tied pasture grass and fishing line with Margie
approx. 18" x 6'
Wool Text 6: Every Blade Of Grass, Laurin, 2011
Handwoven Icelandic ewe wool script on pasture fence
approx. 10" x 16'
left top
left middle Grass Text 1: LOVE (Fall), Laurin, 2010
Handwoven grass text
approx. 8' x 30'
left bottom Wool Text 7: And With Each New Discovery, They Came To Know Themselves, Laurin, 2012
Handwoven Icelandic ewe wool script on pasture fence
approx. 4' x 16'
above Reed Text 2: SILENCE, Jasper Farm, Chattaroy, 2012
Handwoven Cattail Reeds
approx. 4' x 25'
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
19
DANIEL MARCHWINSKI
I N A N E F F O R T to bridge the gap between the city
government and its creative community, Qronicle, an
experiential data collection system was installed to gather
user information about spaces that have been affected
by the efforts of the creative community. As Detroit
continually struggles to regain its footing, groups of
creative people and individuals have been reinvigorating
spaces through their own, often secluded, efforts. Avalon
International Bread Company has spearheaded pockets of
successful and unique commerce, making a small section
of the city “more livable.” The Russell Industrial Center has
fostered growing artistic communities that are resulting in
collectives, galleries, and traffic. These initiatives, and the
others chosen for the project, demonstrate the power and
determination that the creative community has to thrive
and create growth.
This city is being transformed from the bottom up.
20
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
QRonicle is aimed at creating an argument to convince
key figures in the Detroit city government to begin to
work with this energy, in order to reimagine the current
and future state of the city; to promote a partnership
that is mutually beneficial; and to update the urban
regeneration practices within the city of Detroit beyond
the “drop-off-at-the-door” entertainment based initiatives
of sports stadiums and casinos.
Qronicle is, simply, a series of six signs placed in key
locations within the city of Detroit. Each location has
been affected in a unique way by efforts driven by
creativity and community. A unique QR code on each sign
brings the user to a web page where they can answer
questions about that site and view answers left by others.
The data was compiled into an online database, analyzed
in order to draw conclusions, about the city, from the data.
This site will be passed on to the City of Detroit.
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
21
ETO OTITIGBE
I A M a polymedia artist. I create work in
many mediums to explore my curiosities,
voice my frustrations, and expose people
to new experiences. For me art making
is a form of self-discovery, exercise, and
ritual. By sharing my work I open a forum
to discuss sensitive issues and promote the
exchange of ideas.
Throughout my life I have learned to
negotiate the various poles of my identity:
Nigerian-American-Artist-Inventor-DesignerDJ-Musician to name a few. I found that
sculpture and new media are the best way
for me to share this ongoing journey with
people. I use these archetypes to generate
work that is polytextural and fresh. At times
my work is charged with political subject
matter in response to current events. On
other occasions, I find the creative process
to be invigorating and I enjoy the challenge
of creating something new and innovative.
My work is aligned with the tradition of
artists who use digital technology to create
and manipulate their work. I often employ
tools reserved for engineers and architects
to create art. I use bespoke software
applications to manipulate video in realtime and rapidly alter the visual references
in my work. I combine original photographs
and video footage with archival video from
the interwebs to create mediascapes. In
many ways, my creative practice is a form
of post-modern pastiche.
22
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
Detail of Becoming Visible – Eyes on Me, 2012
Photorealistic carving in ultralight fiberboard with enamel paint
22" x 30"
opposite page
above
Victory! Welcome to the Sidewalk Sucka, 2011
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
23
ALESSANDRO SAU
M Y A R T W O R K takes a critical view of aesthetic issues in relation to
anthropology. Most of my work is based on a dialectical technique of taking
a set of visual premises and working with them until they are transformed.
I am fascinated by the seductive power of the image, which I consider to
be something that is always beyond our understanding. I am attracted by
the process of construction and destruction of things, and this leads me to
conceive of the image as always being in a state of becoming. Often, my
work consists of multiple fragments of an idea: every work is a fragment,
a relic of a process. I always attempt to make this fragment universal: the
work should always embody the entire process. Most of my work relates in
one way or another to philosophy, and I often write a brief essay to reflect
on those concepts I feel to be fundamental to my art practice. I like to think
of myself as a person who knows one thing — that he knows nothing.
Scio me nihil scire — I know one thing, that I know nothing.
Relic, 2012
Still from video
00:01:50
above Dwarf, 2012
clay, tempera, wax, honey, bees' intervention
29 x 14 x 18 cm
opposite page Mandala, 2012
Tempera on paper and snails' intervention
30 x 33 cm
left
24
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
25
DIANNE SMITH
M Y W O R K deals with trash, class consumption and the politics of race. I create
assemblages constructed out of everyday materials or items that would ordinarily
be thrown away. I find ways to bridge conventional material and my trash. Or, I may
deconstruct an existing piece and repurpose it into another work of art.
One day, while cleaning my kitchen I began to pay attention to the size of my
trashcan. For the first time I noticed how large it was. The next day I swapped it
out for a much smaller one. However, that did not satisfy my preoccupation with
waste. I became consumed with what I threw away. Suddenly, I began saving things
like: junk mail, bottles, cans, old clothes, painting rags, files, newspapers, packaging,
etc. These discarded materials became part of my inner dialogue — a metaphor for
how I view the world. Identity: race, gender, religion, inequity and consumption in a
global climate filled with economic despair are all interrelated. Yet, my personhood
defines my relationship with each one. Just as it defines the relationship I have with
the items I use in my sculptures. Most often, a force that is beyond me informs and
guides my creative expression. I am called upon to create my art in response to the
events, circumstances and times of the world around me.
Whether it is the plight of women and children around the world or the tragedy of
a natural disaster or a conversation with a friend or some historical context, I use
my work as a way to share information by connecting it to socio economic and
political issues. I often donate to charities that deal with the social and economic
development of women and families globally. As such, my art has a purpose
beyond the surface and the eye.
opposite page , detail above Within Shadows Cast, 2012
Site specific installation, brown butcher paper, staples, and red gel light filters
Dimension variable
mfa exhibition Afro Syllogisms, 2012
Site specific installation, brown paper rolls, nails, staples, and gel light filters
Dimensions variable
26
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
27
STEPHAN TAKKIDES
UMLAND
U M L A N D I S A S H O R T F I L M that looks at the periphery of a city, combining
elements of fiction with documentary. Although the film is shot around Berlin, the
city’s name is never mentioned. Still landscape shots are narrated by an amateur
botanist who ventures out beyond the city limits in search of the first flowers of spring.
Frustrated with urban life, he heads off on three trips to explore the wilds at the end
of the suburban railway. These lead him to the remnants of a sewage farm, a former
landfill site and along an overgrown rail track to a vast cemetery in the city’s outskirts.
28
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
Umland, 2012
Stills from video
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
29
ANDREW TEHERAN
I E X P E R I E N C E T H E P A S S A G E of time when working with stone.
A boulder is split horizontally by a tree growing from within it. Crumbling
fragile pieces of slate cascade from the exposed rock by the side of
the road. I see them decay in front of me, slowly falling apart, like timelapse photography within the scale of centuries. In my work I try to find
the lyrical and weightless aspects of the stone’s form. Line and shape
reveal aspirations of a more fluid, vertical existence. The process is a
transformative one, for both the stone and myself, bringing forth
balance and silence.
Untitled (11 stacks), 2012
Natural stone with industrial materials
60' x 6.5'
30
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
31
ANDREW TELICHAN
UNTITLED
A S A N O P E R A T I C S I N G E R who temporarily lost
(but has since regained) his voice, I spent the past year
exploring the complex notion of voice, what it means to
have and lose one, and its positive and negative relations
to language and convention — particularly since voice is
typically associated with communication. The problem
with this common notion of voice is that it is based
on arbitrary man-made conventions of language that
constrain our interpretation of the world and ourselves
to the conceptual and normative viewpoint of the
masses, leaving us with no voice of our own. I contend,
however, that we do have a personal voice, which is
the pre-symbolic, bodily voice we used in a meaningful
way in infancy not only to express our personal needs
and acoustically explore our surroundings (e.g., through
babble) but also to recognize our “selves” through
innate organic means as the source of this voice. What is
fundamental to this voice is that it basically arises from
a state of uncertainty. To be human is to live without the
kind of certainty about the world, ourselves and even
our voice that conventions often reflect. The challenge of
finding one’s own voice requires not only understanding
the important role conventions play but also recognizing
they are not fixed absolutes and that all interpretation
is a choice that occurs first within ourselves — prior
to “voicing” through signs and symbols. Based on this
deeper concept of voice – and as one aspect of the
studio work created for my thesis project — I created
an installation based around a patch I developed in
Max/MSP which isolates the sounds of the human voice
from linguistic meaning by fragmenting it into isolated
phonemic and incidental sounds emitted during speaking
or singing. By focusing on these sounds alone, as well as
how voice can be translated into other types of sounds, I
have sought to highlight how the purely sonic dimensions
of voice have the power to reveal and communicate
various states of mind and body that otherwise go
unnoticed in everyday linguistic exchange.
opposite page Sections of the Max/MSP patch used
in this installation overlaid with visualizations of sonic
data derived from a recording of the artist’s voice.
32
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
33
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Sonia E Barrett, of German and Jamaican parentage
was raised in England, China and Cyprus. As a result she
draws upon a range of cultural influences in her work.
She is a graduate of St Andrews University where she
studied Philosophy, Literature and International Relations.
She has exhibited works on paper, installation pieces and
digital art internationally; most recently at the NGBK show
“Making Mirrors” in Berlin, WOMA in Grenada, “Nothing to
Declare” in Manila and at the Santorini Biennale in Greece.
Her works have been featured in a number of publications
including the Interkultur, Zeitschrift des Deutschen
Kulturrates and the International Review of African
American Art. Her work is concerned with exploring the
relationship between empathy and subordination.
www.sebarrett.net
Paula Billups is a painter based in Boston. She received
her BFA in 2005 from the Lyme Academy in Connecticut,
subsequently pursuing further study at the Grand Central
Academy in New York. She has exhibited widely in the
United States, particularly in New England and New York
and has won several awards. She came to Transart Institute
to develop working relationships with a global community
of artists. Ms. Billups is one of the charter members
of the American branch of the Tunisian Collaborative
Painters, directed by Fulbright Fellow David Black, and
she participated in its first United States action in 2010.
Her published articles were instrumental in building the
group’s visibility to officials in Tunisia and art programs in the
United States. Most recently she was the inaugural Artist in
Residence at the Siena Art Institute’s residency program in
Siena, Italy.
Livia Daza-Paris is a Venezuelan-born artist that
incorporates video, performance and storytelling as
platforms to integrate themes of locality, memory and
the social to reflect her humanist approach to art creation.
Her work is greatly influenced by her practice of the
dance and poetics of Skinner Releasing Technique and
the aesthetics of Grotowsky’s theater. Daza-Paris has
postgraduate degrees in Digital Technologies Design Arts
and in Community Economic Development, both from
Concordia University, Canada. She is certified in the
Skinner Releasing Technique.
Daza-Paris has been presented at Festival International
de Nouvelle Danse, Vancouver Dance Festival, Tangente,
Montreal Arts Interculturel, du Maurier Theatre, Canada
and at Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122 and The Knitting
Factory in NYC and internationally at Blanc Compound in
Manila, Ateneo de Caracas in Venezuela, and “Los Talleres”
in DF Mexico.
Daza-Paris is an awards recipient from: Conseil des Arts
et de letters du Quebec, Canada Arts Council, Ontario
Arts Council, City of Montreal, Venezuelan Arts Council,
Fundacion Jose Angel Lamas, Laidlaw Foundation; and DTW
Suitcase Fund for the Arts, with funds from the Rockefeller
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 G R A D UAT E M FA E X H I B I T I O N
35
Foundation. In 1991 and 1994 she won the Excellence
Award by American Illustration, USA, as Artistic Director
of the international project ‘CAONABO’ New Performance
in the Americas. The Festival had part of its residency in
"Los Barrios" of Caracas and in towns of the Venezuelan
African East Coast, presenting a new model in the country
for arts and community collaborations.
Born in a folly, abandoned by her mother, and eventually
brought up by wolves, Lark Gilmer-Smothermon has
never known a day without the unconditional love of wild
animals. She survives in that fragile space between life and
death, honed by the sun, and molded by an honest days
labor on the land. It is this un-tweetable life of fiction where
she resides, clothed by the land, curled up in the arms of a
100-year-old cottonwood, and warmed by the love of her
woolly beasties. There is no better way to give an account
of her life than to say, she is doing what she loves.
The computer has taken over Daniel Marchwinski’s
life. He programs for work; he programs for Art; sometimes,
he programs for fun. He goes to school online. He teaches
online. He keeps up with his friends, online. This box hurts
my back. He shops online; he makes appointments online;
sometimes, he even orders food online. Convenience. He
met his girlfriend online; when she goes on tour, they spend
hours online : skype, gmail, gchat, facebook. I no longer
use a pen. He draws on a tablet; he writes in Google Drive,
36
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
yet he is — right now — surrounded by piles of unused
art supplies. Yesterday, this was his bio. Tomorrow it will
change.
http://theproject.qronicle.org
Eto Otitigbe is a polymedia artist who combines
sculpture, video, installation, and performance to create
illusions, actions and sensitive spaces. His work deals
with themes such as movement and transitions, cultural
hybridity and the embodiment of loss prevention as ritual
and cultural artifact.
Since 2003 Eto has been exhibiting his own work and
participating in collaborative projects internationally. His
performances have been staged in venues such as Monkey
Town, The Tank, Grace Exhibition Space and his own
alternative venue, The BricoLodge in Williamsburg.
Eto holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Joint Program in
Design at Stanford. He is an M.F.A. candidate at the Transart
Institute. Eto was born in Buffalo, New York in 1977. He lives
and works in Brooklyn, New York.
www.etosoro.com
Alessandro Sau was born in Cagliari in 1981, and
lives and works in Cagliari and Milan. He studied painting
in Rome at Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (BA), then
moved to Milan where he received a degree in Art and
Anthropology of the Sacred (MA) at Accademia di Belle
Arti di Brera. He worked in Berlin as studio assistant for the
photographer Attilio Maranzano. Currently he is studying at
Transart Institute.
Stephan Takkides is an artist from England and Cyprus.
www.alessandrosau.it
http://vokzal.info
For over a decade Dianne Smith has been exhibiting
in New York’s Chelsea and Soho art districts, she is an
installation artist, sculptor and painter. She is an educator in
the field of Aesthetic Education at Lincoln Center Institute
and The Center For Arts Education in New York City. Smith
has CO-produced an online radio show the New Palette, for
MoMA WPS1 Art Radio, and was one of the artists featured
in the Boondoggle Film Documentary Colored Frames. Her
most recent exhibitions include solo shows: Syllogisms at
RFA Gallery in Harlem, New York and Surface and Soul, in
Martinsville, Virginia.
Andrew Teheran is a New Jersey based sculptor,
filmmaker, educator and new media artist. He was born
in New York City to parents of South American and
Scandinavian descent. He holds a degree in Art History
from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Under
the auspices of Temple University, he spent a semester of
study in Rome, Italy. He went on to post-baccalaureate work
in sculpture and art education at Montclair State University
in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Mr. Teheran has been
teaching at East Side High School in New Jersey’s Newark
Public School district for over fourteen years. Within the
district and throughout the state, he has been celebrated
and decorated for his distinguished work in arts education.
In 2009 Andrew received the Apple Computer Distinguished
Educator Award, a prestigious honor which only fifty
teachers in the United States are picked bi-annually to
receive. His pedagogical career continues at East Side High
School where he has developed and is leading its awardwinning, internationally recognized New Media Studies
Smith a Bronx native of Belizean Descent, attended the
Otis Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of
Technology. She currently lives and works in Harlem.
www.diannesmithart.com
He graduated from Chelsea College in London and now
lives and works in Berlin. His work engages with places and
landscapes and includes web projects, computer games,
photography and video.
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
37
Magnet Program. Andrew Teheran is currently a Filmmaker
in Residence at New Jersey’s Essex County College, where
he teaches film and animation part-time as an adjunct
professor, and is an Artist in Residence at Newark’s City
Without Walls Gallery, where he is involved in many of its
educational outreach programs. This summer, Mr. Teheran is
scheduled to complete his Master of Fine Arts degree with
Transart Institute in Berlin, Germany.
In the years prior to and following his time as a student
of Slavic Languages and Literature, Andrew Telichan
has worked independently and professionally as a bassist,
electronic music producer, sound designer for theater and
dance, and opera singer.
Telichan has produced several recordings in collaboration
with his earlier improvisational and songwriting ensembles,
38
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
such as Zvook and Musíme (Saint Louis and New York City,
USA, respectively), and released his first solo extended
player, Pliant Seeds, in 2009. In addition to composing and
sound design, in recent years his personal research has
covered areas such as sound and music computing and
embodied music cognition.
In his first year at Transart Institute, Telichan focused his
research on the psychoacoustic principles and cognitive
processes involved in the brain’s interpretation of the
auditory world. In response to medical issues leading to the
loss of his singing voice over a two year period, he spent
his second year investigating the complex phenomenon of
voice, its many possible interpretations and the implications
surrounding its loss at various levels of lived experience.
He is currently living in Chicago, USA. He will be living
elsewhere come October, 2012.
2 010 – 20 12 CREDITS
E X H I B I T I O N C U R AT O R S
FA C U LT Y A N D A D V I S O R S
Deborah Aschheim
Tatiana Bazzichelli
Myron Beasley
Sarah Bennett
Sanford Biggers
Lynn Book
Michael Bowdidge
Jean Marie Casbarian
Colin Chase
Paolo Chiasera
Ofri Cnaani
Geoffrey Cox
Dorit Cypis
David Dunn
Nicolás Dumit Estévez
Simon Faithfull
Laura Gonzalez
Victoria Hindley
Stanya Kahn
Caroline Koebl
Lisa Mezzacappa
Nils Norman
Dread Scott
Radhika Subramaniam
Wolfgang Suetzl
Mary Ting
Anette Schäfer and Miles Chalcraft
Trampoline – Agency for Art and Media
www.trampoline-berlin.de
EXHIBITION ADVISORY BOARD
Jean Marie Casbarian, MFA
Nicolás Dumit Estévez, MA, MFA
PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGERY
Page 10 and 11: Bruno Weiss
Page 18 and 19: Jenni Cappella
Page 20: Dooley Images
ACADEMIC DIRECTORS
Page 21: Lewis Meyer
Cella, MFA and Klaus Knoll, PhD
Page 31: Robbie “Bert” Brown | freebertbrown.com
Transart Institute | The Unschool Art School
(Thanks to the artist/designer for helping to create the images)
ACADEMIC LIAISON
C ATA L O G U E D E S I G N
Sarah Bennett, PhD
Jeanne Criscola | Criscola Design
Associate Professor in Fine Art
Programme Leader MA Contemporary Art Practice
Subject Leader Fine Art
Plymouth University
Special thanks to Klaus, Cella and Transart faculty.
T R A N S A R T I N S T I T U T E 2 0 1 2 M FA E X H I B I T I O N
39
A B OU T TR ANSART INSTITUT E
Transart Institute offers an international low-residency MFA and a
practice-based PhD program for working artists in a highly individualized
format. The innovative MFA program consists of three intensive summer
residencies with lectures, workshops, critiques, seminars, performances
and exhibitions in Europe and two fall or spring residencies in New York.
In the four semesters between residencies, students create their own
course of study realizing individual art and research projects with the
support of faculty and self-chosen artist mentors wherever they work
and live. The MPhil/PhD is a three to four year full time degree program
with an average work commitment of 30 hours per week. The Degree is
only offered for practice-based research (creative work) accompanied by
a written thesis that contextualizes the work.
The Institute’s programs are geared towards the development of a
sustainable artistic praxis rather than training in certain media or
genres, challenging students to think conceptually and work creatively
in new ways. Current students work with animation, curating, digital
media, film, gaming, graphic design, installation, painting, performance,
photography, robotics, sculpture, sound, text, video, virtual reality.
MFA Creative Practice + practice-based PhD validated by Plymouth
University.
40
TRANSFORMERS | COILED POTENTIALS
www.transart.org