Urban Living - Six International Artists Explore Technology and Environmental Issues: France Cadet, Pascal Glissmann & Martina Hofflin, Informationlab, Roman Kirschner, and Sabrina Raaf :: January 25 - April 5, 2008 :: Opening: January 25, 2008; 5:30-9 pm :: France Cadet - Artist Talk :: January 26; 1 pm :: Wood Street Galleries, 601 Wood Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

France Cadet (Artist / Robotic Teacher), born in 1971, is a French Artist whose work raises questions about various aspects in science debates: danger of possible accidents, observation of animal and human behavior, artificialisation of life, side effects of cloning… She has run several robotics courses for many years now and teaches robotics at Fine-Arts School of Aix-en-Provence. She first studied sciences before coming to fine arts. Her work meets those two interests. She had shows in Tokyo, ARS Electronica Linz, Lille2004, ARCO 04, Roger Pailhas gallery, La Vilette and Palais de Tokyo. She was awarded the VIDA 6.0 competition in Madrid (1st Prize) and Digital Stadium Awards in Tokyo (1st Prize). MEIAC, the Badajoz contemporary art museum, Spain, bought from her a robotic piece.

Pascal Glissmann is a professional artist and designer. He holds a BFA in communication design from the University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf and an MFA in audiovisual media from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. After working as an art director and freelance designer he joined the faculty of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne as a researcher and teacher. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Media Art, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptiste University.

Martina Höfflin, born 1971 in Kenzingen, Germany, studied Computer Science at the Academy of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen and the San Francisco State University focusing on interaction design, usability and internet applications. After 2 years of freelancing as a media designer for different companies and customers in Berlin and Munich, she is now working in research at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne since 2002. She is also the co-founder of the Büro für Brauchbarkeit, a studio for media, art and fashion in Cologne. Martina and Pascal are working together at the Academy of Media Art Cologne. After several workshops with students on the topic of experimental electronics and simple robotics, they developed the installation elf - electronic life forms and exhibited the work in international shows and festivals in Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Korea, Austria, Finland, Japan, Germany, Canada and the United States.

INFORMATIONLAB: Auke Touwslager received his design degree from the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 2001 he co-founded Anderemedia, a Dutch design studio dedicated to designing innovative concepts, web applications and information mapping tools. In the same year he became a principal affiliate of Govcom.org, an Amsterdam-based foundation dedicated to creating and hosting political tools on the Web. Some of these tools where featured at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in 2005, in an exhibition entitled “Making Things Public,” curated by Bruno Latour. In 2004, Auke Touwslager founded Informationlab. The group was initially meant as a reflection of his personal interests, but has grown into an international network for research, collaboration, exchange of knowledge and concept development. Its main goal is to create new ways of interfacing the diversity of information flow and the public space and its constructions as architecture.

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1975, Roman Kirschner has studied philosophy and art history at the University of Vienna and has attended the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Together with Tilman Reiff and Volker Morawe, he co-founded the artist collective fur in 2001. In 2005, he became a research artist at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. He currently lives and works in both Cologne and Vienna.

Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago-based artist working in experimental sculptural media and photography. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at Mejan Labs (Stockholm), Stefan Stux Gallery (NYC), Ars Electronica (Linz), Opel Villas Foundation Art Center (Rüsselsheim), Museum Tinguely (Basel), Espace Landowski (Paris), Artbots 2005 (Dublin), San Jose Museum of Art, Kunsthaus Graz, ISEA (Helsinki), Klein Art Works (Chicago), The Lab (San Francisco) and Painted Bride Center (Philadelphia). She is the recipient of a Creative Capital Grant in Emerging Fields (2002) and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship (2005 & 2001). Reviews of her work have appeared in Art in America, Contemporary, Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, Leonardo, http://www.lab71.org , The Washington Post, and New Art Examiner. She received an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1999) and is currently Assistant Professor in the S chool of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago.