Ubermorgen

UBERMORGEN.COM

UBERMORGEN.COM lizvlx & Hans Bernhard with Guantanamo Bay Prison Guard Chris Arendt
Born Established 1995
Nationality AT/CH/USA
Education University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Known for Installation, Internet Art, Video, Photography, Performance
Notable work Voteauction, Nazi~Line, EKMRZ-Trilogy, Generator Tetralogy, CLICKISTAN, Asylabwehramt, Superenhanced, WOPPOW
Movement Media Hacking,[1] Conceptual Art
Awards ARCO Beep, Ars Electronica, IBM, Swiss Art Award
Vote-Auction Seal, 200 x 200 cm, digital print on canvas, 2000
GWEI – Google Will Eat Itself – Installation, The Premises Gallery, Johannensburg, 2005
TORTURE CLASSICS Installation Basel, mixed media, 2011
Lizvlx & Billie-Ada from UBERMORGEN.COM during a performance in Damascus, Syria
Hans Bernhard inside Sound of eBay Installation, Madrid, 2009

UBERMORGEN.COM is a Swiss–Austrian–American artist duo founded in 1995 and consisting of lizvlx and Hans Bernhard.[2] They live and work in Vienna, Basel and S-chanf near St. Moritz in the alpine Engadina valley in Switzerland.

Their main body of work consists of internet art/net.art,[3] installation, video art,[4][5][6] photography, software art,[7] performance and uses the convergence of digital media[8] to produce and publish online and offline.[9][10]

Their early works were media hacking[11][12] projects using low-tech tools to reach very large audiences.[13] During the work on their best known project Voteauction (2000) CNN.com called them "Maverick Austrian Businessmen".[14]

In 2001, they started a collaboration with Christoph Schlingensief for the development and staging of a Hamlet project in Zurich: NAZI~LINE , a bigger than life fake neo-Nazi helpline and exit strategy finding agency.

In 2005 they started the EKMRZ Trilogy , a series of conceptual hacks (GWEI[15][16] – Google Will Eat Itself , Amazon Noir and The Sound of eBay).

Between 2007–2011 their focus went into research-based productions (Superenhanced , WOPPOW , KRAFT Series )[17] and Rock Art productions such as TORTURE CLASSICS[18] and CLICKISTAN (commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art).[19] They started to work extensively with video during this period.[20]

Since 1999 their work has been shown in museums and galleries in Europe, America, Africa, Australia and Asia and include venues such as SFMOMA, Centre Pompidou, Konsthall Malmoe, NTT ICC Museum Tokyo, Gwangju Design Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, MUMOK Vienna, Ars Electronica Linz, WRO Media Art Biennale Wroclaw, MoCA Taipei, Witte de With Rotterdam, Lentos Art Museum Linz, Biennale of Sydney, ARCO Madrid and the New Museum New York.[21]

They are currently represented by Fabio Paris Brescia , [DAM] Berlin and Carroll / Fletcher London .

Life and career

Lizvlx and Hans Bernhard are an artist duo[22][23] but also a couple in private life.[24] They are engaged and have two children, Billie-Ada (2003) and Lola Mae (2007).

Lizvlx was born in Linz (AT) and grew up in Wels, Salzburg and Elmira (Upstate New York). Hans Bernhard was born at the Yale University Hospital in New Haven (USA), grew up in New Haven and Basel (CH) and moved to Vienna (AT) to study with Prof. Peter Weibel, and later on with Prof. Lev Manovich (UCSD), Prof. Peter Lunenfeld (Art Center College of Design) Pasadena and Prof. Bazon Brock (emeritus) de:Bazon Brock (Wuppertal) and completed his studies in 1999.

Due to his excessive drug abuse and a manic episode in Cape Town 2002, Hans Bernhard was diagnosed bipolar.[25][26][27]

Their earliest works were part of the avantgarde Net.art movement (etoy,[28][29] 1994–1998, 194.152.164.137,[30] 1996) and were exclusively shown online (World Wide Web/WWW).[31][32] This work became part of the Internet art and Digital art history and is researched at universities (dissertations, thesis)[33][34] and taught in (Art history).[35]

The collaboration with both their children (Superenhanced[36][37] & Spielendes Baby – Schlafendes Baby (original title)[38]), the inclusion of Hans's mental illness and the merger of private and public life led some critics and academics to consider UBERMORGEN.COM as a Gesamtkunstwerk.[39]

Important personal and artistic influences were early meetings with Jean Tinguely, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Spoerri and Eberhard W. Kornfeld in the Basel art scene of the 1980s and with Niki de Saint Phalle[40] in St. Moritz, and the long-time relationship (going back to 1916 during the first world war and the purchase of a Giovanni Giacometti painting by the grand-grandfather of Hans Bernhard ) with the Giacometti family (Giovanni Giacometti, Alberto Giacometti) in the nearby mountain valleys Val Bregaglia and Engadin in the canton Grisons in Switzerland.[41]

Network

In the last 15 years UBERMORGEN.COM was part of the global contemporary technology art scene. Some mentionable connections and collaborations from this period: Net.Artists Alexei Shulgin,[42] Heath Bunting,[43] Olia Lialina, Vuk Ćosić and with contemporary artists Aram Bartholl, Paolo Cirio, James Powderly[44] and Evan Roth from Free Art and Technology Lab and Graffiti Research Lab, Franco and Eva Mattes (0100101110101101.org), IRWIN, Franz West, Janez Janša, Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom), Carsten Nicolai, Minerva Cuevas, The Yes Men,[45] Zhang Peili, Jodi, Miltos Manetas, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Trevor Paglen, Douglas Rushkoff, Lev Manovich, Olga Goriunova and Nicolas Bourriaud.

Publications

Awards

References & notes

  1. ↑ Carina Plath, Westfälischer Kunstverein (ed), Futurologischer Kongress, Frankfurt am Main 2006 (ISBN 978-3-86588-468-8)
  2. ↑ Adam Wishart, Regula Bochsler, Leaving Reality Behind: etoy vs eToys.com & other battles to control cyberspace, Ecco, 2003 (ISBN 978-0066210766)
  3. ↑ Review by Eduardo Navas: Rachel Greene, "Internet Art", Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, 2004
  4. ↑ M. Bittanti, D. Quaranta (eds), GameScenes. Art in the Age of Videogames, Milan, Johan & Levi Editore, Milano 2006 (ISBN 978-8860100108)
  5. ↑ Domenico Quaranta, Yves Bernard (eds), Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age, FPEditions, Brescia 2008 (ISBN 978-8890330865)
  6. ↑ "Psych|OS", NTT ICC Catalogue, Open Nature, Tokyo 2005, p.42, ISBN 4-7471-7028-9
  7. ↑ Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin (eds), THE READ_ME Software Art & Cultures, Aarhus 2004 (ISBN 87-9884440-4-0)
  8. ↑ UBERMORGEN.COM at CRE/Chaos Radio with Tim Pritlove (german)
  9. ↑ WMMNA/we-make-money-not-art UBERMORGEN.COM Interview
  10. ↑ Christine Böhler, Literatur im Netz, Triton Verlag, Wien 2001 (ISBN 3-85486-103-6), p92, Interview with UBERMORGEN.COM
  11. ↑ Lentos Museum of Modern Art (ed), Just do it!, Edition Selene, Vienna 2005 (ISBN 3-85266-267-2)
  12. ↑ “Netzpiraten. Die Kultur des elektronischen Verbrechens”, Armin Medosch and Janko Röttgers, Heise / Telepolis, [V]ote-auction, Ars Electronica Jury-Hack and etoy, p. 69-88 (ISBN 388229-188-5)
  13. ↑ Thomas Ernst, Patrticia Gozalbez Canto et al (eds), SUBversionen. Zum Verhältnis von Politik und Ästhetik in der Gegenwart, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2008 (ISBN 978-3-89942-677-9)
  14. ↑ Vote-selling Web site to be revived, possibly offshore, CNN.com, August 25, 2000
  15. ↑ Springerin, Slavo Krekovic “Will Google Eat Itself?”
  16. ↑ Culture Jamming – Interview with Hans Bernhard
  17. ↑ UBERMORGEN.COM Manifesto, RC1 (release-copy 1) presented at „Positions in Flux“ Symposium, The Netherlands Media Art Institute Amsterdam, 8.5.2009, published online Vienna, 28.7.2009
  18. ↑ TORTURE CLASSICS PROJECT 2010, UBERMORGEN.COM feat. James Powderly
  19. ↑ CLICKISTAN PROJECT 2010
  20. ↑ UBERMORGEN.COM videos on Vimeo
  21. ↑ Alessandro Ludovico (ed), UBERMORGEN.COM – MEDIA HACKING VS. CONCEPTUAL ART, Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2009 (ISBN 978-3856164607), p.198-299
  22. ↑ Art Daily "Artist Duo Ubermorgen.com Celebrate Tenth Anniversary with New Book"
  23. ↑ AG Borderline-Kongress (ed), BORDERLINE – Strategien u. Taktiken f. Kunst u. soziale Praxis, Wiesbaden 2002, p.21-32 (ISBN 3-8311-3775-7)
  24. ↑ Media Art Net / Medienkunstnetz, artist biography UBERMORGEN.COM
  25. ↑ HOLY FIRE, Art at the digital age, Psych|OS project, Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia
  26. ↑ Scriptum, first UM.COM/Hans Bernhard lecture on "Drugs&Art" after the manic episode 2002, University of Applied Arts Vienna
  27. ↑ Psych|OS Cycle by UBERMORGEN.COM, 2001–2010
  28. ↑ The Guardian, Excerpted from Leaving Reality Behind by Adam Wishart and Regula Bochsler (Fourth Estate)
  29. ↑ AG Borderline-Kongress (ed), BORDERLINE – Strategien u. Taktiken f. Kunst u. soziale Praxis, Wiesbaden 2002, p.33-42, Reinhold Grether on"Wie die etoy Kampagne gefuehrt wurde – ein Agentenbericht" (ISBN 3-8311-3775-7)
  30. ↑ Authorized copy of 194.152.164.137, a collaborative project by lizvlx and Andrea Mayr
  31. ↑ Christian Ulrik Andersen, Soeren Bro Pold (eds), Interface Criticism. Aesthetics Beyond Buttons, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus 2011 (ISBN 978-8779345041)
  32. ↑ Exhibition Catalogue Connessioni Leggendarie, Net.Art 1995–2005, ready+made publisher, online version, PDF, Digimag09/NOV05, Review by Marco Mancuso
  33. ↑ Whitney Museum of American Art, 2010 Annual Fund Project, About the artists
  34. ↑ Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft Inga Reimers writes in her masters thesis "(Selbst-)Inszenierung – Praxis – Kunst. Eine kulturwissenschaftliche Annäherung an das „hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk ubermorgen.com“ about the relation of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" and Richard Wagner "Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft" , Universität Hamburg, 2009
  35. ↑ Interview with Wolf Lieser about: "WOLF LIESER – DIGITAL ART – NEUE WEGE IN DER KUNST/THE WORLD OF DIGITAL ART", h.f. ullmann publisher / DAM Berlin – Galerie für Digitale Kunst, 2010
  36. ↑ Superenhanced project, Superenhanced Generator
  37. ↑ Keynote & Superenhanced Installation at [ISEA]09 in [Belfast], [Northern Ireland]
  38. ↑ Project website and images, Installation exhibited 18.2. – 29.2.2004 at [Kunsthaus Graz]
  39. ↑ Cornelia Sollfrank, 2009, "Das Genie von übermorgen"
  40. ↑ Niki de Saint Phalle 29.10.1930 Neuilly – 21.5.2002 San Diego
  41. ↑ Letters, photos, sales contract and the painting are in the ownership of the Bernhard/Pernisch/Plattner family, archived in S-Chanf and Basel/Switzerland
  42. ↑ Bringing Capitalism and Democracy Closer Together, HANS BERNHARD / Ubermorgen Interviewed by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin
  43. ↑ OVERGADEN Institute of Contemporary Art in collaboration with Artnode, parallel solo exhibitions Heath Bunting/UBERMORGEN.COM
  44. ↑ TORTURECLASSICS.COM, UBERMORGEN.COM feat. James Powderly, Korea music torture performance 2010 and Beerboarding Performance Ars Electronica Linz
  45. ↑ Funding and collaboration "Salzburg" WTO/GATT.ORG Stunt, 2000
  46. ↑ , Oldest and most prestigious Award for Swiss Artists, exhibition and award ceremony during ART Basel

External links