my house: participants biographies

Presentations my house: The participants

Beatriz Colomina is Professor for Architecture and Founding Director of the Program Media and Modernity at Princeton University. Among her publications are “Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media” (MIT Press, 1994), “Doble exposición: Arquitectura a través del arte” (Akal, 2006), “Architectureproduction” (Princeton Architectural Press, 1988), “Sexuality and Space” (PAP, 1992) und “Cold War Hot Houses: Inventing Postwar Culture from Cockpit to Playboy” (PAP, 2004).

François Roche (Paris) takes recourse in his architecture to the natural resources of the construction site itself, transforming them into building materials. He works with whatever a site and its context offer him. For example, he thus created in Bangkok an art museum whose electrostatically charged metal façade attracts dust particles from the city’s heavily polluted air. If parameters – like population, availability of material, or the need for surface – change during the construction process, then the form of construction and the design of the building also change. Roche thereby speaks of a “chameleon architecture” that connects the human with the architectural body and the laws of nature. Along with his work in the architectural firm R&Sie(n), Francois Roche currently works as a Guest Professor at Columbia University, New York.

Additional information: www.new-territories.com

Renata Salecl (Ljubljana) The philosopher and sociologist conducts research at the Institute for Criminology at the Law Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, but also works at the London School of Economics. She is also a Guest Professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York and was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and a Guest Professor at the Humboldt University. Her investigations of the interplay between desire and symbolic constructions of society have found expression in a large number of publications, including: “The Spoils of Freedom: Psychoanalysis and Feminism” (1994), “(Per)Versionen von Liebe und Hass” (2000), and “On Anxiety (Thinking in Action)” (2004). A volume titled “Tyranny of Choice” is in preparation. She applies psychoanalytical categories in the analysis of current social phenomena – for example that of self-designing.

Philippe Rahm (Geneva/Paris) is interested in the invisible, physiological dimensions of architecture. In his projects, he experiments with the corporeal experience and perception of rooms. Philippe Rahm thereby operates with light intensities, hormonal substances, scents, or the oxygen level, for example in the installation “Hormonorium” at the Venice Architecture Biennial 2002. In “my house”, he demonstrates his physiological concept of architecture.

Additional information: www.philipperahm.com

Jesko Fezer (Berlin) The architect and artist is a co-manager of the thematic bookstore “Pro qm” and is one of the editors of the political architecture magazine “An Architektur”. Along with giving instruction at various institutions of higher learning, he was most recently a Guest Professor for “Urban Research” in the Master Studies course in Architecture at the Academy of Visual Arts in Nuremberg. In his artistic collaboration with Axel Wieder, he works on questions of public space, institutions, and urbanity – including for the 3rd Berlin Biennial and the Istanbul Biennial 2005. Jesko Fezer is currently working in the planning collaboration “ifau and Jesko Fezer” on designs for Munich and Graz. His most recent publications are Fezer/Heyden, “Hier entsteht. Strategien partizipativer Architektur” and Fezer/Schmitz, “Lucius Burckhardt: Wer plant die Planung?”

Mathias Heyden (Berlin) works as an architect on the establishment of a Community Design Center, “mitBAU_AGENTinnEN / ISPARA”. Beyond that, he works as a curator and project manager in political-cultural projects, as a journalist, and as an artist. Mathias Heyden is a co-founder of the cultural association Stilkamm 5 1/2 and of the self-administrated living and working community K77. In the latter capacity, in collaboration with the educational institute of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, he is the project manager of the series of events “Selbstbestimmtes, gemeinschaftsorientiertes Planen, Bauen und Leben” (self-determined, community-oriented planning, building and living) in Berlin. Mathias Heyden was the curator of the 14-day event “Hier entsteht” and is a co-editor of the book of the same name.

He also headed a study of the interim use of untenanted public properties as forums for independent, cooperative education and work.

International Festival (Stockholm) is a collaborative project, founded in 2004, of the artist/author/curator/choreographer Mårten Spångberg and the architect Tor Lindstrand. International Festival operates with the social, economic, and architectural dimensions of a festival; it designs and shapes processes of communication and distribution and constructs sites, for example “the Theatre” for the Styrian Autumn 2007.

Horst Schwebel The philosopher and theologian is the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Church Construction and Church Art and a Professor for Practical Theology at the University of Marburg (1980 - 2006). He has published extensively on the relationship between art and the Church, for example “Die Kunst und das Christentum. Geschichte eines Konflikts” (2002), and has curated numerous exhibitions in this context. Horst Schwebel is the editor of the series “Ästhetik – Theologie – Liturgik” at LIT-Verlag Münster and the Lutheran editor of the ecumenical magazine “Kunst und Kirche”.

Yang Lian (London) The author was born in Switzerland in 1955 as the child of Chinese diplomats. He grew up in Beijing. In 1974, he was sent into the countryside for “re-education” and later worked in radio. During the short phase of a kind of liberalization from 1978 to 1980, Yang Lian published his first “modernistic” poems in the underground literary magazine “Jintian”. In the framework of a campaign against “mental pollution”, he was criticized for his long poem “Nuorilang”, which was the fruit of extensive travels tracing Chinese history. During a reading tour through Australia and New Zealand, the events on the “Square of Heavenly Peace” moved him to remain in exile in New Zealand, where he has meanwhile attained citizenship. In 1997, he took part in documenta X. In 1999, Yang Lian received the Flaiano International Prize for Poetry. His poems are described as constant references to death, transience, and dying, which tear the reader out of everyday life.

John Palmesino is a founding member of the agency “Multiplicity” in Milan, which deciphers the traces of change in cityscapes that result from new social habits. He teaches at the Ecole Polytéchnique Fédérale de Lausanne and now reads and conducts research at the ETH Studio Basel/Institute City of the Present. His publications include “Lessico Postfordista. Dizionario di idee della mutazione” (Feltrinelli, 2001) and “USE – Uncertain States of Europe. The Future of City Europe” (Skira, 2003). In “my house”, he will speak about architecture in connection with mobility and migration.