Monica Studer (1960) and Christoph van den Berg (1962) live and work in Basel. They have been collaborating since 1991 in the domain of new media and launched their first Internet projects in 1996. They express themselves exclusively via computer-generated images specially adapted for their projects.
The recurrent motif of their virtual experimentations is the Swiss mountain and everything related to it in terms of idyllic and stereotyped imagery. Rocky summits, pastures sown with wild grasses, snow-covered panoramas studded with mountain huts, and also emblematic objects of a specifically Swiss alpine world, such as Swiss Army blankets, checked table-cloths, mountain furniture, wooden sleds and saveloys are redrawn digitally, inspired by the artists’ memories.
Studer and van den Berg take hold of our folk imagination and colour with new tones the representation of the traditional motif of the alpine landscape, which appears here as fictitious as it is familiar. For some years, Studer and van den Berg have adopted an approach including their photographic prints in a spatial installation, where video projection, sound and other animations interact with the spectator. In 2005, their project Yama (mountain, in Japanese) was presented at the Swiss Pavilion at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan.
The recurrent motif of their virtual experimentations is the Swiss mountain and everything related to it in terms of idyllic and stereotyped imagery. Rocky summits, pastures sown with wild grasses, snow-covered panoramas studded with mountain huts, and also emblematic objects of a specifically Swiss alpine world, such as Swiss Army blankets, checked table-cloths, mountain furniture, wooden sleds and saveloys are redrawn digitally, inspired by the artists’ memories.
Studer and van den Berg take hold of our folk imagination and colour with new tones the representation of the traditional motif of the alpine landscape, which appears here as fictitious as it is familiar. For some years, Studer and van den Berg have adopted an approach including their photographic prints in a spatial installation, where video projection, sound and other animations interact with the spectator. In 2005, their project Yama (mountain, in Japanese) was presented at the Swiss Pavilion at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan.
