photo Loz
Annie Abrahams
Born in 1954, Hilvarenbeek, Pays Bas
Lives in France since 1987
Mail : bram.org@gmail.com
Download cv.pdf with images in English (2Mo)
Download cv.pdf only text in English (166 Ko)
Bio et cv en français
Doctorat (MPhil) in Biologie university of Utrecht 1978
Diploma (MA) of the Art school of Arnhem 1985
Information en français http://bram.org/info/aaf.htm
Annie Abrahams has a doctorate (MPhil) in biology from the university of Utrecht and a MA from the Academy of fine arts of Arnhem. In her work, using video, performance as well as the internet, she questions the possibilities and the limits of communication in general and more specifically investigates its modes under networked conditions. She is known for her net art and collectif writing experiments and is an internationally regarded pioneer of networked performance art.
She has performed and shown work extensively in France, including at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and in many international galleries including among others Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló, Spain; the New Musem, New York; the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art, Yerevan; Furtherfield gallery (formerly HTTP) in London and NIMk in Amsterdam; festivals such as the Moscow Film Festival; the International Film Festival of Rotterdam and the Stuttgarter Filmwinter, and on online platforms such as Rhizome.org and Turbulence.
She teached at the university of Montpellier in the arts department. (2002-2005) From november 2006 she curated the project InstantS for panoplie.org. She also curated and organized the Breaking Solitude and Double Bind webperformances on panoplie.org in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Besides doing her art work she lectures and teaches workshops.
Annie Abrahams was born as a farmer’s daughter in a small village in the Netherlands in 1954. When she is going to high school for the first time, she stays mute for three days, the time necessary to learn to express herself otherwise than in the local dialect. Having obtained a doctoral in biology in 1980 she leaves her post as an assistant researcher at the university because her colleagues didn’t appreciate she read Dostojevski in her spare time. Annie is teaching biology at high school and obtains a diploma in painting at the art school in 1986. In 1987, with a two years grant from the Dutch government for young artists she is going to live in France, where she stays until now.
There she learns to use a computer to help her to construct and to keep trace of the installations she makes with her paintings on complexity. Annie Abrahams shows her computer drawings for the first time in her show “Possibilités” in l’espace Forum in Nice, France in 1992. When in 1996 she creates a ‘meeting place’ in a show in Nijmegen, Annie uses the computer to be present from a distance. Since than she produces net specific work and starts Being Human (low tech mood mutators / not immersive) her most important web work, that explores ways of interpersonal relations on the net. This work concentrates on the possibilities and limitations of communication on the net and has been shown in various international new media and video festivals and shows. (Skopje, Mexico City, Tallinn, Seoul, Atlanta, Montreal, Athens, Clermont Ferrand, Tokyo, Bristol, Seattle, Split, Rotterdam, San Fransisco etc.) Lately her work evolved into Internet related research pieces among which Huis Clos / No Exit : a networked performance series investigating collaboration and relational dynamics in a dispersed group, and Angry Women. She often collaborates with other artists as for instance Nicolas Frespech, Antye Greie, Curt Cloninger, Mark River from MTAA and Igor Stromajer among others.
“When studying biology I had to observe a colony of monkeys in a zoo. I found this very interesting because I learned something about human communities by watching the apes. In a certain way I watch the internet with the same appetite and interest. I consider it to be a universe where I can observe some aspects of human attitudes and behaviour without interfering. (for instance in ViolenceS http://bram.org/indexviolence.html )
I am also interested in providing a situation in which the visitors, by leaving a personal trace, collaborate in revealing a collective voice, participate in the emergence of a staggering beginning for a language of the multitude. I am convinced these collections contain a revelation of actual tendencies in society (our contemporary being) and procure us a kind of cartography of the other. (I am looking for ways to introduce the web-created-text objects in real space, to inseminate these collections with physical energy, I want to give “flesh and bones” to what exist as potential in a computer and what appears as only light on a screen)
On the web I am also experimenting with the possibilities of making visitor behaviour (by clicking, choosing, participating, the visitor reveals the work of the artist) the content of an esthetical contemplation (see Separation , Painsong, Karaoke).” ” Interview with Annie Abrahams” by Béatrice Bonfanti 2005.
Information in Fr on http://bram.org/info/aaf.htm (en français)
2012 txt Eng Annie Abrahams interview by Alessandro Ludovico, Neural 43, Autummn 2012, Networked Tangibility, ISSN 2037-108X.
2012 txt Eng Trapped to Reveal – On webcam mediated communication and collaboration, article by Annie Abrahams for JAR2 (Journal of Artistic Research), ISSN 2235-0225.
2012 txt Eng Today I conversed with, Interviewed by Filippo Lorenzin 20/05.
2012 txt Fr Ita Being Human /Tweet-intervista a Annie Abrahams Tweet Intervista by Simona Polvani.
2011 video Eng Reportage made for “Simeio Art” by Evi Tsirigotaki and Philippe Vu for the Greek public television NET .
2011 txt Fr “Conversation avec Annie Abrahams“, livre avec Manuel Fadat 60 pages.
2011 txt Fr “| Interview | Annie Abrahams |” Entretien par Aleksandra Smilek pour Paris-art.com.
2010 txt Eng “ANNIE ABRAHAMS, ALLERGIC TO UTOPIAS“, Interview by Maria Chatzichristodoulou for Digimag 58
2010 txt Eng “Annie Abrahams and life in networks” by Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X], Lecturer in Theatre and Performance – School of Arts and New Media -The University of Hull @ Scarborough, for Digimag 54.
2010 txt Fr “qui suis-je? Annie Abrahams (1999)” Review, article, Cyril Thomas, Magazine electronique du CIAC no 37.
2010 txt Fr “La vie dans les réseaux d’Annie Abrahams“, by Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X] for Digimag 54 translated in French for Poptronics.
2010 txt Eng Artistic Textual and Performative Paths in New Media Correlations: An Interview with Annie Abrahams by Evelin Stermitz.
2010 txt Eng “If not you not me – catalogue essay“, Ruth Catlow, Catalogue txt for the show in HTTP gallery, London.
2009 txt Eng Coming Out of One’s Bubble interview with Annie Abrahams and Albertine Meunier by Cyril Thomas.
2009 video Fr Quelle question l’art internet pose-t-il aux arts de la scène ? Entretien vidéo for Espace Sondes, Centre National des Ecritures du Spectacle La Chartreuse.
2009 txt Fr SORTIR DE SA BULLE : ENTRETIEN CROISÉ ENTRE ANNIE ABRAHAMS ET ALBERTINE MEUNIER par Cyril Thomas.
2009 video Fr Derrière l’écran : Entrevue avec Annie Abrahams 10 min. Paule Macrous Patric Mondou.
2009 video Fr Entretien avec Annie Abrahams. Annie Abrahams présente son film “The Big Kiss” lors d’un regard croisée avec Agnés de Cayeux dans le cadre des RIAM 06 à Marseille.
2008 video Fr “Rencontre avec Annie Abrahams“, Video interview with Charles Prémont for Le Lien MULTIMÉDIA.
2008 radio Eng Radio interview Annie Abrahams by Ida Hiršenfelder http://www.radiostudent.si/article.php?sid=17354081215_Annie_Abrahams_intervju_01.mp3
2006 txt Fr Entretien avec Annie Abrahams pour une mémoire.
2005 txt Eng “Interview with Annie Abrahams” by Béatrice Bonfanti for weblogart.
2003 txt Fr Eng Pavu.com interviews anniea for P2P
2000 txt Fr Interview with Annie Abrahams par Bertrand Gauguet in Archée.
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Articles on the work of Annie Abrahams : http://bram.org/info/articles.htm
Articles sur le travail d’Annie Abrahams : http://bram.org/info/articlesf.htm
