Michelle O'Brien

Author Archive


Finding your corn.

What a moment, NZ! Let the confetti fly and the champagne flow.

Frühling in Görli

The first real day of Spring, and Kreuzbergers descend on Görlitzer Park to celebrate.


















Coffee and sunshine. Two of my favourite things.


Here’s a great feature on Illuminations of Wedding in Greece’s OZON MagazineKristin Trethewey and I curated this three-day event, consisting of a group exhibition, panel discussion and workshop, in January 2013 at Wedding-based creative resource centre SUPERMARKT. Click on the image to read the article as a PDF (in Greece and English).

Hello! You are invited to a special event in Berlin next Tuesday evening entitled BERLIN’S MEDIA ART COMMUNITY: A Female Perspective, curated and moderated by myself and Ela Kagel. All information on the event can be found below. I hope you can join us. Best wishes, Michelle

BERLIN’S MEDIA ART COMMUNITY: A FEMALE PERSPECTIVE
Tuesday 9 April 2013, 18:30—23:00 at SUPERMARKT

Featuring presentations from Tatiana Bazzichelli, Valie Djordjevic, Andrea Goetzke, Kathy Rae Huffman, Claudia Kefer, Julia Kloiber, Lisa Lang, Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen, Diana McCarty & Michelle Thorne // Moderated by Ela Kagel & Michelle O’Brien

 Berlin has a rich and long-standing tradition of women engaged in the fields of media arts, media activism and digital culture. Today over half of Berlin’s independent project spaces and initiatives revolving around the themes of tech, media and digital culture are run by women. A broad range of female curators and activists continue to shape net politics – initiating independent programmes, hosting events and leading research at Berlin’s universities. Despite this large female contingent, and in a city where the workforce is generally evenly distributed, it is at odds that the theoretical discourse on media art and net activism, executive roles and directorships, as well panelists and participants at events and festivals, are still male-dominated. In a forward-thinking city like Berlin, this ongoing gap should be addressed so that the wider fields of media arts and activism are fully inclusive of the multitude of female skills and viewpoints on offer.

At this event, SUPERMARKT highlights and showcases a selection of the women who have played an important role in shaping the profile of Berlin as a digital culture city. We will learn more about their history, career paths, and the narratives of their work and life. Ten inspiring women in the field will join us, and answer questions against the backdrop of their own lives and careers, including what drives them to continue the work they do, what have been the crucial moments of their careers, and who are their professional mentors, support networks, and inspirations. This evening will provide an opportunity to get to know this community, share inspirations, identify trending themes in the field, and gauge both common resources and grounds for future collaborations. Whilst the focus of this event will be on the diversity of Berlin’s female media art community, of course anyone is invited to attend.

Language: The language of this event will be English
Cost: This event is free // please email rsvp@supermarkt-berlin.net to register your attendance
Address: SUPERMARKT – Brunnenstr 64, 13355 Berlin (U8 Voltastr or U8 Bernauerstr)

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Photo: © Ars Electronica | Susi Rogenhofer, Flickr CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license

It’s Bigger Than

A wintery Sunday of great music and a friendly crowd at Prince Charles, Berlin. Thanks to Dan and Lisa from It’s Bigger Than for organising such a fun event – and even better a fundraiser for Save the Children‘s Syria Appeal.






























Whistler Summer Lights

Whistler Summer Lights #1 [2012]

Whistler Summer Lights #2 [2012]

Whistler Summer Lights #3 [2012]

Ode to Winter

There’s no denying Berlin’s winter is long and hard. From October until April there is an almost total lack of sun, limited hours of daylight, constant below zero temperatures, and a colour palate limited to 50 shades of grey. Some days it feels like winter will never end. But it will, and it does – there is light at the end of the tunnel. So here is an Ode to Winter: grim, bleak, but also full of fragile beauty. A time for hibernation and reflection, shedding of old skins, and preparation for the rebirth of spring.



















Frühling dreaming

Weddingmarkt Kunst & Kulturmarkt

Weddingmarkt Arts & Culture Market at SUPERMARKT, Wedding.















The cover of TJ Eckleberg‘s new album This Might Feel Like Home, featuring my photography.
This image was shot on Main Street, in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant district in summer 2012.

East Side Gallery Protest

“Wowereit, das Denkmal bleibt!”
East Side Gallery Demonstration – Berlin, 3 March 2013

































A Fleet Foxes kinda day.

Thinking of my beautiful bro-and-sis-in-law Andy Bull & Renee Avgoustinos as they prepare to get hitched in the Hunter Valley tomorrow.
Sending lots of love from snowy Berlin x

“We are in danger of overlooking a simple yet crucial point: the greatest value of the arts – to individuals and to local communities – is through participation in them, rather than merely being exposed to them as spectators … We talk endlessly about the need for ‘balance’, by which we usually mean the balance between work, family and leisure. But there’s another quite magical possibility: balancing the stresses, disappointments and tedium of life with the therapeutic release of tension through some form of regular creative outlet.” – Arts Hub. Read more: http://ow.ly/hWm7y

Smelly homeless folk, corporates in suits, screaming babies, punks with dogs, professors, naughty school kids, hipsters, accordion-playing gypsies, and everyone in between. I love the many walks of life that inhabit Berlin’s metro, day and night. One day I’ll make a documentary about this unique urban space.

Here is a video feature on Illuminations of Weddinga three-day event I curated in January 2013 at SUPERMARKT, Berlin. The event included a large-scale group exhibition of media, video and sound art installations, a live audio visual performance comprised of user-submitted found sounds and visuals from set GPS coordinates surrounding the venue, a panel discussion and community-focused workshop on themes of urbanism, and artistic expressions of localities in periods of social and economic transition.

Furthermore, here is an editorial feature on the event, published in Greece’s national OZON Magazine.


Bitte.


The Silent City: Digitally Assembled Futuristic Megalopolises by Yang Yongliang. Made from hundreds of photographic artifacts.

Haunting, especially the aerial shots at end.

Fun night of booty shaking with Berlin’s beautiful young things, then walking home through the silent dawn mist.
Feel like a new person today: so good to be reminded of catharsis on the dance floor.

Thanks to Katrina James for this photo of my Oudezijds Voorburgwal 147 series hanging in ReTramp Gallery Berlin for the exhibition Reisen durch das Objektiv, February 2013.