ubermorgen | Sleeping Baby - Playing
Baby
Exhibition 18 - 28
February
Finissage 29 February
Curator: Franz Xaver
Kunsthaus Graz medien.kunstlabor
gallery
Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz
T +43 316/8017-9226
http://medien.kunstlabor.at
fx@kunstlabor.at
Image: ubermorgen, poster, installation, Graz 2004
Photo: The White House / ubermorgen
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"digital actions" have been the primary focus of a group known by the name "ubermorgen" - they have gathered only a peripheral interest in contemporary art history and science. However, it is seen that ubermorgen's work falls into the category of marginal, unworthy so-called "net.art" or curiously represents a certain kind of (temporary) "fool's genius"; thus: a body of work merely a concession to today's ruling technologies.
For the first time being, ubermorgen bring their communications and actions strategies into the central and (sur)realistic space of a gallery/museum, working with a subdued and subtle set of digital and mass media. The living subject and its formalized world of objects enter into direct communication with its / their audience. This work shows the organic and harmony-oriented weltbild of the young artist couple lizvlx and hans bernhard; as well as their six months old daughter billie-ada.
ubermorgen is globally re-known for their digital actionism, their legal art (F)originals and media-hacking: actions like [V]ote-auction, Nazi~Line in cooperation with C. Schlingensief, Injunction Generator etc.; and for Hans Bernhard's (etoy.HANS) work with the artist group etoy (the digital hijack, etoy.TANK-SYSTEM, etoy.SHARES, etoy.TANK-17, the etoy.HOLDING, etc.).
Installation: futon, soft greyish cover, Chicco-trapeze, Chicco-train [both interactive plastic toys with music and light], Chicco-key-chain, textile book, teddybear, waterbottle, pacifier, diverse H&M garments, baby sling, silver Buggy Mummy, book "Pippi Longstocking", Corolle doll height 52cm [handmade].
In depth: an analysis of the installation / performance "Playing Baby - Sleeping Baby" at the Kunsthaus Graz shows the piece to be a work of "Genre Art" combining a subtle actionist composition of imagery with an evenly subtle meaning: we are confronted with an allegory of life itself. At the first - most impartial - glance the depicted scene displays the following: the center of the image captured in an almost starlightly kind of way; a baby playing on a bed-like cloth (it moves around the image); its bodily gestures - not the secundary movements of the head and eyes - points to a (compactly walling the back of the image) monolithic wall made of lockers equipped with internet servers [data-spind]. It is toned in blue light and strangely manipulates the technological perception of the room by its weight.
ubermorgen's
toddler image culminates into a religious-metaphysical interpretation of life; the image immanentely transcends the
resignative and / or pessimistic "stadienlehre" of those beginning moments - and thusly falsifies it. Moreover,
the observer of ubermorgen's "Playing Baby - Sleeping Baby" ascends an allegory of life, which appears to be
without comparison in art history.
Images and Links:
Live-Webcam: http://195.177.250.6 [until 29.2.2004]
Webcam images (archive): http://gw.kunstlabor.at/ubermorgen/
http://www.ubermorgen.com/exhibitions/installations/spielendes_baby/
Contact:
Kunsthaus Graz medien.kunstlabor
Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz
T +43 316/8017-9226
http://medien.kunstlabor.at
fx@kunstlabor.at
Opening hours:
daily 10 am - 8 pm
Finissage:
February 29th
6 pm - 8 pm