About Us

Cybercity Ruhr is an art collective from Essen in Germany founded in 2006 by Graham and Christina Smith and Anja Bardey to develop and conduct THE THIRD EYE 2010 project for RUHR.2010 European Capital of Culture.

Cybercity Ruhr produces local and international art projects and video documentaries. The projects focus on city transformation, interactivity, media art and new technology. Together with universities, schools, art academies, architects, artists and art institutions, they conduct their projects with the focus on future visions of the urban landscape, demographic development, identity and integration, individual local situations and technological development.

www.cybercityruhr.com

Graham Smith

is an internationally acclaimed Canadian artist and inventor who has been exploring the boundaries between art and science since the early 1980's through his robotic, virtual reality, photographic and telepresence artworks and research projects (www.telepresenceart.com). His work intersects the boundaries between the scientific and cultural worlds by mixing cutting edge university research, technological inventions and innovative media artworks. From 1993 to 1995 he directed the VRAAP program (Virtual Reality Artist Access Program) at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto where he explored the message behind this new medium, thus acting out McLuhan's theory that artists are like a cultural DEW Line (Distant Early Warning) for society who's artworks provide an image of the uses these technologies will have in the future.  He is one of the founders of the German art collective Cybercity Ruhr which is currently producing “THE THIRD EYE" telepresence exhibition for the RUHR.2010 European Capital of Culture that will take place in Essen, Germany in November 2010. He recently exhibited "INTERSECTION" at Transmediale 2010 in Berlin, an interactive video installation that allows viewers to explore the Berlin Wall past and present by using their bodies as an input device (www.intersection.tv). He is also one of the directors and founders of the Dutch company Webchair VOF  which manufacture and deploy the Webchair videoconferencing system that links chronically ill children from the hospital/home with their classmates at school. 120 Webchairs are currently deployed in the Netherlands, Belguim, France and Germany. These "telepresence" units have helped hundreds of children deal with the social implications of their isolation due to serious illness and the firms are now working on a laptop version of the technology that will help elderly people stay connected to their social networks.

Christina Smith

is a freelancer in the arts, culture and education field. She has fifteen years of experience in cultural administration and management working amongst others for the Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim an der Ruhr before she started to work on her own projects. Since 2003 she assists Graham Smith in his international art and inventive work. In 2006 she wrote a business plan for art and educational projects and co-founded together with Graham Smith and Anja Bardey the artist collective Cybercity Ruhr based in Essen, Germany, for their international media-art and educational-urban planning project The Third Eye. She curates together with Anja Bardey and Graham Smith THE THIRD EYE TWINS2010 project for RUHR.2010 which will be exhibited in late 2010 at World Heritage Site Zollverein in Essen. Christina developed the original workshop modules for THE THIRD EYE together with Anja Bardey. She conducted and managed many educational workshops for THE THIRD EYE since 2006 in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. Since March 2009 she is co-curating and coordinating the 'Adaptation: Designing the Future City - 3rd i' project in conjunction with the Rotterdam V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media for the Dutch Culture Center in the framework of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Anja Bardey

received a master´s degree in East Asian Studies and Economics with a focus on Japan and Korea. She has been working for film and television since 1995, amongst others for Teamwork GmbH (Dortmund). Since 2005 she works as a freelance journalist for the German Goethe-Institute. In 2006 she co-founded with Christina and Graham Smith the artist collective Cybercity Ruhr based in Essen, Germany, for their international media-art and educational-urban planning project; THE THIRD EYE. She curates together with Christina Smith and Graham Smith THE THIRD EYE TWINS2010 project for RUHR.2010 that exhibits in late 2010 at World Heritage Site Zollverein in Essen. Anja developed the original workshop modules together with Christina Smith. She conducted and managed many educational workshops in Germany and realized video documentations on several workshops in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. In cooperation with urban-designer Leonhard Lagos Kalhoff she has been working since 2009 on the study transfer_next_generation - a best practice study on projects realized in the context of THE THIRD EYE 2010 for the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development.