| Stefan
Altenburger, Promenade, video installation, 1999 |
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The
video works "Promenade" by Stefan Altenburger and
"Circus" by collectif_fact deal with urban concepts
of space, as generated in the virtual worlds of three-dimensional
computer animations. In both cases, the familiar parameters
of space, order and orientation – used by the viewer to
navigate around the virtual cities – are neutralised, thus
displacing the illusion of linear movement.
Altenburger uses the settings of the computer game "Silent
Hill" – devoid of all characters – abandoning
his lone hero in this environment. Aimlessly he moves as if
along a Moebius strip, through the abandoned night-time city,
forced to turn back by various obstacles, passing by the same
places again and again.
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| Cédric
Bobay |
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Language
(statements and sentences) is the domain of Cédric Bobay,
who will be developing a new work for the exhibition that examines
the setting of the exhibition site: the disused Phoenix West
blast furnace works.
http://www.cedricbobay.com
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etc.
publications
( Nicolas Bourquin, Sven Ehmann, Krystian Woznicki), Swiss
etc., Publication + installation, 2004 |
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In
their installation and reader "Swiss etc.", both developed
in the context of the exhibition, Nicolas Bourquin, Sven Ehmann
and Krystian Woznicki focus on the "Switzerland modell".
They explore the model of Switzerland as a special economic
zone in comparison with such states as Malaysia and Uruguay.
They also reflect on the political, social and economic self-images
of this Alpine state with regard to their contradictions.
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| Christoph
Büchel, An
Oval Office Tour With President George W. Bush, 2003,
video, 7:09 |
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identity of subject and space is enacted nowhere as consummately
as in the image worlds of political marketing. Here, the setting
of the respective protagonist serves the sole purpose of direct
reflection of his values and claims to power. The two video
works by Christoph Büchel, "An Oval Office Tour With
President George W. Bush" and "La Suisse Existe",
are exemplary of these image strategies. In both cases we see
found footage left unprocessed by the artist. One video is a
White House production that shows George W. Bush in person taking
us on a tour of the Oval Office. The architecture, furniture,
paintings, sculptures and photographs that he wants to make
more accessible to us constitute the matrix, as it were, of
an ideologically charged story, at the beginning and end of
which we see the president’s power and self-image. |
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| Christoph
Büchel,
La Suisse existe, 2000,
video, 7:10 |
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second video is a recording of the televised New Year speech
of the Swiss Federal President at the time, Adolf Ogi, at the
turn of the millennium. He is standing outside a snow-covered
tunnel in his home town – the Lötschbergtunnel, deeply
symbolic, as he explains – taking it as an epitome of such
Swiss virtues as love of one’s home and cosmopolitanism.
However, this representative act of blending natural environment,
technology, national awareness and political identity unintentionally
falls apart. |
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| Fatma
Charfi |
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| In
her slide projection, the Tunisian born artist Fatma Charfi
who lives in Bern drafts out an ambiguous relationship to Switzerland.
The self-portrait shows the artist with a serious look on her
face, veiled with black crepe. The crepe is covered with little
black and red paper figures, "Abroucs", as they are
known; the red figures are wearing a white cross, i.e. representing
the Swiss national flag. |
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| collectif_fact,
Circus,
2003, video installation |
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The
camera trip generated by collectif_fact through a virtual environment
is based on digital photos of a real square in Geneva. The pictures
were resolved into several layers in the computer and reorganised
with a 3D program in such a way that the various image elements
and layers now obey their own logic of motion. The viewer navigates
through a fragmented urban landscape, within which all points
of reference drift apart.
http://www.collectif-fact.ch
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| Eric
Hattan |
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In
Eric Hattan’s video works, that he filmed on his countless
walks or from a moving car, the view settles on totally unspectacular
places, situations and events: they follow the rising moon,
observe building sites, the traffic, or carelessly discarded
objects carried off by the wind. Only detached from their everyday
context do these "inessentials" obtain the status
of something special, whose significance, however, remains unresolved.
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| Andreas
Hofer, Flüchtige
Räume, 2002, photography |
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In
different ways, Andreas Hofer and the artist duo Dagmar Keller/Martin
Wittwer deconstruct the illusory spaces of photography and cinema.
With the aid of his digitally manipulated architectural photos
arranged in a tableau ("Flüchtige Räume"
/ fleeting spaces), Hofer enacts a hybrid, profoundly vexing
"trompe l’œil" oscillating between real
and engineered space, illusion and disillusion, inside and outside.
http://www.andreashofer.ch
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| Teresa
Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, Detached
Building, 2001, video installation, 05:38
sec, loop |
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| In
the video installation "Detached Building" by Teresa
Hubbard/Alexander Birchler, the camera travels to and fro in
one constant movement along the inside and outside of a tin
shed surrounded by a neglected garden. Inside the shed, the
camera moves over empty beer bottles and various household effects,
finally coming upon a group of teenage boys rehearsing a rock
song. All of the young musicians are totally absorbed. Despite
the warm light immersing the shed, there is a dreary atmosphere.
In the night-time scene outside, a teenage girl is throwing
stones at a building in the background. As in other video works
by Hubbard/Birchler, we see a "void" emerge at the
thresholds between inside and outside, a visual pause, within
which time and space become shifted, breaking apart the linearity
of the narrative flow. On the camera’s "way back",
the girl has suddenly disappeared, and the shed too is empty.
Then the loop starts from the beginning. In "Detached Building",
not only time and space are constantly drifting apart, these
ruptures also reflect the inclusions and exclusions in gender
relations. |
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| Steeve
Iuncker, Cannes,
2000, photography (b/w) |
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Commissioned
by a well-known magazine, the photographer Steeve Iuncker took
photos of a number of situations during the Cannes film festival.
The locations, figures and sceneries of his b/w pictures leave
no doubt that this is a glamorous event. However, glamour and
fashionable lifestyle are not created by the stars, but rather
by "fringe figures" such as bodyguards, aristocratic
dogs or random passers-by.
http://www.attitudes.ch/energies/iuncker/Iuncker.htm
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| Park
Junebum, Parking, video, 2001/2002 |
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| text
follows soon |
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| Park
Junebum, Crossing, video, 2001/2002 |
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| Dagmar
Keller / Martin Wittwer, MORE
TO COME, 2003, Closed Circuit Installation |
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| In
their video installation "MORE TO COME", Dagmar Keller/Martin
Wittwer create the perfect illusion of a moving landscape, at
the same time reversing its construction. |
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| Franticek
Klossner,
Mess up your mind, 2001, high speed video installation |
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Franticek
Klossner conducts a drastic deformation of the self – on
the immediate façade of the self, as it were: the face.
His video installation "Mess up your mind" consists
of eight projections depicting portraits of various people.
Their faces have been filmed with a high-speed camera developed
for military purposes. This camera takes in excess of 3000 pictures
per second, so that the movements of the portraitees are considerably
delayed, their faces distorted to the point of monstrosity.
http://www.franticek.ch
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| Chantal
Michel, Während
der ganzen Zeit wuchsen und wuchsen die Kinder und stellten
nur die eine Frage, während die Erwachsenen ratlos und
grossartig lächelnd schrumpften und schrumpften, 2003,
C-Prints, 130 x 130 cm |
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scene of Chantal Michel’s photo series is the desolate
spaces of a disused hotel into which the artist has forced an
entry to enact herself in front of the camera. She is wearing
long, classy clothes and elegant shoes, whose purity and intactness
contrasts starkly with the setting. At the same time, the artist
assumes unusual positions: she sits on a chair that is standing
on a table, stands on a mantelpiece, or peeks out from under
a sofa. In each scene, the artist appears in different coloured
clothes that seem to resemble the colour of various objects
set up nearby – as if in a subtle attempt at camouflage.
In a double movement, the figure is assimilated – and at
the same time repulsed – by her setting. For all her presence
and entrenchment in the space, she remains an alien apparition.
This unresolved relationship, in turn, invites us to indulge
in a host of speculations on the events. |
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| Frédéric
Moser / Philippe Schwinger, Acting
Facts, 2003, video installation |
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| The
story developed by the artist duo Frédéric Moser/Philippe
Schwinger in the video installation "Acting Facts"
unfolds primarily outside the pictorial space. The starting
point is a historical event: the massacre perpetrated by US
soldiers on hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai during
the Vietnam war. On the basis of eye-witness reports, this incident
is interpreted and acted out by an actor set against the neutral
backdrop of a pine forest. In what is a powerful role play,
he switches characters, acting the commander as well as his
subordinates, unfolding the dramatic scene from various viewpoints
in our minds. Another imaginary space inserts itself between
the picture space and the viewer: Thanks to countless photographic
and film documentaries and Hollywood movies, the Vietnam war
has long become inscribed in the collective media memory. |
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| Frédéric
Moser / Philippe Schwinger,
Capitulation Project, 2003, video installation |
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| "Capitulation
Project", another video installation by Moser/Schwinger,
also deals with the My Lai massacre. In this case, the artists
refer to a play that focused on the affair (among other things)
in the nineteen-seventies: in the form of an open performance,
in which the actors operated in constantly changing roles and
the audience actively participated on stage. For their video
installation, Moser/Schwinger have reconstructed excerpts from
the play in a free interpretation. At different levels, they
thwart various narrative spaces in "Capitulation Project":
from the real, historical scene of the events, to the stage
and film and, finally, exhibition space – for here we see
a stage element related to the film. |
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| Marco
Poloni, AKA
(ALSO KNOWN AS) - Script for a Short Film, 64 Inkjet Prints,
297 x 420 mm, 2002 |
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| In
the cinematically arranged 64-frame series of photos "AKA
(ALSO KNOWN AS)" by Marco Poloni, we follow a multiple
male person on its way around various public and private spaces
of two cities. The man (or men?) behaves quite inconspicuously,
but step by step we perceive him (them?) as a suspicious subject:
a terrorist? |
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| Christian
Robert-Tissot, untitled, 2002, Neon work, 80 x 600
cm |
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| Christian
Robert-Tissot presents a neon work that focuses on an inner
condition that is only too familiar to the modern subject, but
which is hardly every associated with the "White Cube",
the enclave of rapt inward contemplation: the neon tubes form
the word "stress", blinking green at regular intervals. |
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