Playful subversion. Beni Bischof

Posted in photography on March 9th, 2024
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Playful Subversion from Swiss artist Beni Bischof is a wild journey through 945 black-and-white images taken from every available web portal in a crash of cultures, identity, humor and political comment a riotous paranoia about the world we live in and the billion of images that assault our senses every single day. It reads like an oversized flipbook except you will need one hell of a pocket to tuck this fat little monster into your coat pocket. Produced for his first Austrian solo exhibition at Fotohof Salzburg, it does exactly as the title suggests. A highly entertaining vade mecum, it blends together the great icons of the culture industry in a high-contrast panorama of our postmodern media culture. The contrast of black-and-white reproductions not only deconstructs and profanes the odd hero or two but also generates a subversive maelstrom, the pull of which is difficult to escape.

Author: Beni Bischof

Publisher: Fotohof edition and Laser Magazin

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Compiler *04

Posted in video on April 26th, 2012
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Compiler *04

RE
reuse, reassemble, reinterpret, repurpose, rework, recombine, reappropriate, recontextualise, reinvent
PLAY

The videos on COMPILER*04—Replay evince and reflect on the creation of versions and remixes, the use of found footage, and the reinterpretation of past events and artefacts. The backdrop to this production is the mass dissemination of tools able to modify digital images and sounds, the sheer infinite availability of online source material, and the carefree deployment of these means and methods by dedicated amateurs.

The growing tendency among amateurs, to pursue image manipulation, simulation, and remix and sampling techniques, plus the accelerated dissemination and remodification of such aesthetic practices (and the products that ensue) in Internet sub / cultures, throws new light on the contemporary as well as the historical deployment of these same practices in the art world, particularly on their deployment by artists active also within Net-based cultures.

A role is played thereby not least by paradox, for a creativity im- perative is inherent to contemporary consumerist culture—the Sony slogan “Be creative!” spells this out clearly—yet this imperative (which is intended also to foster the much-vaunted user-generated content), implicitly requires users to steer clear of any material for which those who voice it happen often to hold copyright…

Of course, the phantoms of emphatic concepts of authorship and originality are still among us.

The Videos:
Keller Kosmas
Alden Volney
Sabrina Ratté / Boxcutter
Aleksandra Domanovic´
John Michael Boling & Javier Morales
Paul Slocum
Oliver Laric
Kari Altmann
Harm van den Dorpel
Guthrie Lonergan
Beni Bischof
Marisa Olson / Tanlines
Körner Union/Larytta
Goldin + Senneby, Hinrich Sachs, Ethidium Gould & Jochen Schmith
Patrick Ward

Texts by Raffael Dörig, translated by Jill Denton
Graphic design by Dan Solbach, Basel
DVD-Authoring by Martina Jung

DVD PAL 16:9
No Region Code
78 Minutes

D 15 €

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