Variablemedia Press Release 14
For Immediate Release 8th October 2004

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'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 www.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.

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*Note to editors: the artist's name "laurie halsey brown" and project title "welkom2r’dam" should both be entirely in lower case.