Curriculum Vitae
Valerie Messini is a registered architect, digital artist, and Senior Scientist at the Peter Weibel Research Institute for Digital Cultures. Her research explores the impact of digital technologies and design tools on space, identity, and perception, with a focus on immersive media, virtual environments, and the concepts of nothingness and digital nature. Her PhD, "void set – about emptiness in virtual space", completed in 2024, was initially supervised by Peter Weibel and later by Clemens Apprich. She has published in international journals and presented her work at conferences across Europe. Valerie graduated with distinction in architecture from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (studio Prix) in 2011. She has worked as a design architect for renowned international firms, including Coop Himmelb(l)au (AUT), Snøhetta (NO), and Flying Elephant Studio (IN), and collaborated with artist Eva Schlegel on large-scale installations. In 2017, she became a licensed architect (ZT). In 2018, she co-founded 2MVD, an artistic collaboration with Damjan Minovski that focuses on combining architecture with innovations and advances in the field of digital art and technology. Their work was shown in galleries and at festivals repeatedly i.e. Angewandte Innovation Lab [AIL], Vienna Design Week, aut. architektur und tirol in Innsbruck, GIFF – Geneva International Film Festival, Transart21 together with Laurie Anderson, MAK Vienna, Venice, Berlin and Barcelona at Sonar+D Festival23. Since 2022, she teaches the interdisciplinary Seminar “OTHER MATTER Exploring Spatial and Curatorial Strategies with Augmented Reality” at the Angewandte. She has also co-taught design studios at the IKA-Institute for Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2022–23) and served as a senior lecturer at the ./studio3 – Institute for Experimental Architecture, University of Innsbruck (2013–2019, 2021, 2023, 2025), where she led VR seminars, courses on novel digital artistic strategies, multiple design courses and master’s thesis supervision, alongside organizing excursions and events. She curated the exhibition Günther Domenig: Dimensional @ Heft/Hüttenberg in 2022, co-curated Data Doom Desire at the AIL in 2024, and has organized countless student exhibitions.
