Art Metropole

k.g. Guttman is Assistant Professor in the Contemporary Dance Department at Concordia Unversity since 2008. Her work considers and experiments with an interdisciplinary position inside both the visual arts and dance contexts, often taking form in installations, videos and performances. She completed her Masters in Fine Arts in Open Media at Concordia University in 2007, included a term as an exchange student in Amsterdam at DasArts, Advanced Studies in Performance, Module: The Political Body.

k.g. Guttman has exhibited and presented choreographic work in various national and international residencies and festivals, including the 2012 edition of Visualeyez Performance Festival, a choreographic commission in 2010 So you think the spectacle does not love you for the company Dancemakers, Toronto, premiering at the Canada Dance Festival, Ottawa, and Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront, Toronto, and a video solo installation entitled Tromperie, in residence at Budakunstencentrum, Belgium, 2011, and Tangente Theatre, Montreal. Her projects have been exhibited internationally including at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Mediamatic, Amsterdam, and funded by the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, The Canada Council for the Arts, Les Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes and Culturesfrance; bourse d‘accueil.

k.g. Guttman’s current project-based research considers the relationship between live performance and pre-recorded materials, improvisation and score (script) based events. Projects explore the impact of the process of recording the live event, and the problematic potential between ephemeral action and the document. Her research is often based on the physical and ethical sphere of interpersonal relationships, and her subjective encounters in public and private space.

Recent projects include the video The Night Forever Unfinished (Désordres Festivale, Lille, France, 2011) in the use of appropriated footage from 1961 as spatial environment for an inserted contemporary figure to activate. Accumulative Interview, in development, examines the representation of a seven day performance-interview between herself and her mentor.

Current new media performance research explores the “experiential breakdown” of actual and virtual action. The project entitled Transparence/ Tromperie Montreal, Canada/ Courtrai, Belgium/ 2010-12 explores the optical play of the physical action on stage with the virtual live feed presence of video. Work references the history of stage scenography and mecanisms for stage illusions, and scrutinizes the different modalities of connection, vulnerability and access in the audience / performer relationship modulated by the screen and camera.

Escorte, recently in the group exhibition Ça et Là at the Fondation Ricarde, Paris, and VisualEyez, Edmonton, 2012, is an ongoing practice of approaching strangers on the street and offering to escort them to their destination. Documentation of the work manifests in writing, drawing, and photographs. Document materials recycle to become the source of a new media performance.

Born in 1976 in Bogotá / Colombia. Studying communication design at the Fachhochschule Dusseldorf with a focus editorial design, typography and new media. Internship Ecole Cantonal d’Art de Lausanne / Switzerland with a focus on typography and new media. Tutor for Editorial Design at the Fachhochschule Dusseldorf.
Postgraduate studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in the subject group media design with the main focus on interaction design. Self-employment as Grafik-Designer/Mediengestalter and set up his own graphic design studios. Since September 2008 artistic / scientific assistant at the KHM in: Fundamentals of visual and media design.

Niels Schrader is a concept-driven information designer with a fascination for numbers and data. He is founder of the Amsterdam-based design studio Mind Design and member of the AGI – Alliance Graphique Internationale. Next to his design practice Schrader has been lecturing at the Delft University of Technology, ArtEZ – Academy of Art & Design in Arnhem and Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam. Since recently he is together with Roosje Klap interim head of the Graphic Design department at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Before setting up his own studio in Amsterdam in 2005, Schrader had worked as a freelance designer for Uwe Loesch and Irma Boom. His portfolio of clients includes a.o. Graphic Design Museum Breda, Museum De Paviljoens, Goethe-Institut Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Mondriaan Foundation, Royal Academy of Visual Arts (Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten), DasArts – De Amsterdamse School / Advanced Research in Theatre and Dance Studies, Berlage Institute, Delft University of Technology, KCAP Architects & Planners, Jap Sam Books, Onomatopee and Slewe Gallery in Amsterdam.