Skizum Residents – Current

Scottie B

Born in 1968, I grew up in a tri-racial (Black, Native American, White) upwardly mobile family in the industrial Midwest; evolving from the inner city ghetto of Buffalo, NY to the upper middle class suburbs of Detroit, MI with 7 stops in between. I earned degrees in engineering and art from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and moved on to work for a well respected design consultancy in New York City in 1993. During my early professional years, I was involved in many innovative and inventive projects within the fields of product, furniture, interior, graphic, and content design. By 1997, I was involved in event conceptualization and production. In 2002, I set up my European center of operations in Berlin, Germany. I now travel between my bases in the US and Europe collaborating on various projects and events.

This wide ranging experience has enabled me with a uniquely broad perspective from which to objectively observe, analyze, innovate and problem solve. My endeavors range from project/product strategic concept development through production/manufacture to implementation & marketing across a wide variety of professional disciplines. In plain language; I help create, develop and implement win-win scenarios based on sound ideas.

Project Links:

The Universal Humane Needs Assessment – is my latest attempt to synthesize a project plan to understand the basis of living humanely to create a balanced and sustainable future for mankind.

My America Too – a political initiative to inspire an informed and active citizenry

Iraq Apology – an initiative allowing participants to begin to make amends

Potential Renaissance – a social concept catalyzer animation (it takes 15 seconds to start)

Skizum Archive – product, interior and furniture design + events + photography + art

Music – streaming dj set 1, streaming dj set 2, clips from live improv performance

Lucas Gray and Kristi de Bonville, a hip young couple from Canada, arrived January first. Kristi is a totally rad elementary school teacher while Lucas is an architect looking for employment and the creator of and a writer for Talkitecture. Check out their travel blog By World of Mouth, its full of fun stories and fantastic photos from their trip around the world last summer and fall. They are also working on a series of videos highlighting fun aspects of life in Berlin and other travel adventures. If you are in need of any design work – either graphics or architecture – email Lucas at lugray@gmail.com.

Ve Magni is a diverse artist and performer from Los Angeles fascinated
by language and culture, and how prescribed meaning vs. subjective
interpretation shapes identity and perception. She is also a
comedienne and clown, and performs in Berlin every week with The Laugh
Olympics, an English-language comedy group. Among her other activities
are acting, singing, visual art, photography, philosophy, and writing.
She is a pioneering member of the “Social Art” movement, and cofounder
of The Museum of Hyperreal Art. Check out some of her work at
vemagni.com

John Howland’s artwork ranges across a number of disiplines, including traditional media, photography, digital media installation, public artwork, and most recently interactive digital projections.
John is currently exhibiting ‘Agony/Ecstasy’, a public artwork for the Melbourne City Council as part of their laneways commissions 2008 link1 link2, other recent artworks include: UCICU for EXPERIMENTA, ‘Sketches for the Probabilty of being, parts I to III’ at the Gertrude digital media festival 2008, and ‘98 percent water’ exhibited with hOur factory’s Unwrapped exhibition 2008.
John worked in Australia for the late Geoffrey Mance as a leading designer for 5 years and also for the subsequent Mance Designcreating custom luminaires for a broad range of Australian and international clients.
John offers a range of personalised design services including custom lighting design, and can also facilate the manufacturing ofyour work with such services as laser cutting file preparation, 3D modelling and visualisation, engineering, and photographic documentaion amongst others.
Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming exhibitions in Berlin featuring Johns work.

Anna-Maria Okeeffe’s most current work is focused primarily on sculpture as meduim, through which a number of recurrent themes are explored, particularly the landscape panorama. These physical renditions of environments have ranged in size from miniature through to room sized installations at 1:1 scale. Images of some of these works and accompanying texts can be found at the following links:
http://www.blindside.org.au/editions/debut.shtml
http://www.westspace.org.au/discursive/essay-on-arterial-embolism.html
http://www.westspace.org.au/discursive/essay-on-arterial-embolism.html
http://www.lindenarts.org/show/2008/0314/index.php