Bio.
Sonia Marques (aka Kiwaïda) is of poet nationality. She writes, takes photographs and composes sound albums. Over the last few years, she has been drawing her Incognitos in black china ink, all in the same size, 50x50 cm, as shamanic signs, symbolic masks of a culture of graphic signs, fanzines and mangas. Since the end of the 90s, she has been using the Internet as a laboratory. She is the initiator of collective and individual virtual housing environments.
In 1999, she co-founded a collective, Téléférique, with which she organized several Démos in various artistic, institutional or associative places in France, as well as in universities, bars and even castles. Having created the first site, of minimal aesthetics, of on-line downloading of works in FTP, the group became a reference in digital arts, in netart, by combining electronic music with visual arts. It ended its activities in 2005. She discovered an uninhabited island on the Internet named Seuqramainos (dissolved in the ocean of networks in 2008). This secret insulation, without giving her media exposure, facilitated the development of a poetic writing, as well as sound compositions, and a reflection on the media through disappearance and the invisible, influenced by cybernetics and complex systems of self-organization. In 2007, she opened a website, named Nissologie, meaning : Island Studies. This on-line graphic edition is a university in which the Observatory of the Language of Oases (oLo) invites other artists doing research to think about insularity. Her productions have been collected there: texts (TXT), poetry (POE), sound compositions (SND), photos (FOT), as well as her Incognitos drawings in black china ink (DRW) In 2009, she composes a musical album, named Cocotriste with the Austrian musician Rico Zerone, who resumes her poetry and her voice, as well as one of her drawings.
Diplomas : Her educational background is multidisciplinary. She graduated from the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré in Paris, where she learned graphic design and fashion. She also graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, in the studio of the artist Jean-Luc Vilmouth opened on the contemporary art and the installations. She followed there the courses of the historian Serge Gruzinski. She obtained a grant of exchange to study in Canada, in Vancouver at Emily Carr Institutes. She followed there the courses of the experimental filmmaker David Rimmer and the photographer Sandra Semchuk. Earlier, she studied music theory and classic piano, then she discovered contemporary dance and performed in several shows with the German choreographer Ingrid Keusemann.
Teaching : From 2001 to 2009, she taught multimedia at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, where she investigated new teaching modes echoeing new sound and visual practices. In 2008, she conceived the website of the school:
http://www.esba-angers.eu
In 2010, she is named a professor of computer graphics and multimedia creation, by competition at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Limoges-Aubusson. She exposes to the school a contemporary work of ceramic named Cendrillon.
* * In 2008, Magnetic Room, the French group, interviewed her. The film was broadcast on their website in 2009:
http://magnetic-room.com/marques.html
(English translation : Thank you Florence for your help ;.)
Autoportrait : Kiwaïda (by phone)
Photo : Sonia Marques (Nissologie)
Photo : Sonia Marques (Nissologie)