welkom 2 r'dam is a net.art piece as part of the intra-disciplinary project beingthere.v2.r'dam.05, which focuses on how locality affects the architectural identity of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Rotterdam has more architects per km2 than anywhere else in the world, and some of the most important such as Rem Koolhaas, but very few of these architects have designed for Rotterdam.
welkom 2 r'dam creates the perception of a tourist site for visitors coming to Rotterdam: re-working the language, strategies and mechanisms common to these sites to 'promote' dialogue about the architectural identity of the city. The site addresses specific issues of identity and locality in Rotterdam but creates a more universal awareness of how each of us experiences architecture and how the identity of a city is created. Interactive components include audio interaction in the moving image on the homepage: these are audio fragments from conversations with architects and the public about the identity of Rotterdam, imbedded into the movement of the city, which can be manipulated and 'scratched'. The site also includes a weblog which is a chronicle of the development of the ideas in the project.
beingthere.v2.r'dam.05 will be launched in July 2005 in relation to a Rotterdam architectural event. Along with the site, there will be a public intervention: posters stating 'This building was designed by a Rotterdam architect' will surround sites designed by local architects and will include this e-mail address: welkom2rdam@hotmail.com in order to encourage viewers to go to the site and post their thoughts of the identity of their city [non-Rotterdam residents are encouraged to also send their thoughts...]. The project also includes a brochure which 'maps' local architecture, a series of photographs and a documentary.
laurie halsey brown is an intra-disciplinary artist and hybrid-practitioner from New York presently based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She creates architecturally focused projects about 'being there' that investigate place and a psychological, experiential relationship to space. An integration of responses and [dis]locations: local/global/physical/virtual/private/public in relation to time [simultaniety] are made visible in the public realm to [re]create an experience of 'being there'. Since 1997 she has created numerous public interventions and media-based curatorial projects including 6 site-responsive intra-disciplinary installations and architectural interventions and 3 single-channel videos that articulate psychological movements of time. Her work has been shown in the US and internationally, including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2004, Terrorvision at Exit Art, NYC and Biennial Bucharest 2004. Since 2001, she has been a part of several online exhibitions and digital festivals including the 2004 Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Australia.
