Monica STUDER/Christoph van den BERG

Profile

Monica STUDER: Born in Zurich in 1960
Christoph van den BERG: Born in Basel in 1962
Since 1991 working together as artist duo Studer/van den Berg


Major exhibitions
2024 “Défilé” Program MIRE, Lancy-Bachet, Geneva, Switzerland
2023 “Éph ém ère” FMR Festival, Linz, Austria
2021 “Swiss Media Art – Pax Art Awards 2020” HEK House of Electronic Arts, Basel, Switzerland
2019 “Flight Interrupted: Eco-leaks from the Invasion Desk” Karachi Biennale, Pakistan
2018 “Open Codes” ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany
2017 “Biotopia” Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany
2015 “Sind wir schon in Echtzeit?” Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Germany
2013 “Reality is not enough” MMOA Moscow, Russia
2012 “Primordial Matter” Kunstforum Baloise, Basel, Switzerland
2010 “Monica Studer/Christoph van den Berg” Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland
2009 “Beyond the Picturesque” S.M.A.K., Museum of Contemporary Art, Gent, Belgium
2006 “Somewhere Else is the Same Place” Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland
        “Alpine Air” Bunkamura Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2005 “Package Holiday” BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK
2005 “YAMA” world exposition 2005, Swiss pavilion, Aichi, Japan
2002 “a Walk, a Ride, a Lift” Villa Merkel, Esslingen/Neckar, Germany
1997 “Wie man eine Seele baut” Musée Jurassien des Arts, Moutier, Switzerland

Major awards
Pax Swiss Media Art Award 2020
Swiss Art Award Prize in Fine Art 2000
Alexander Clavel Award 1995 

Various studio exchanges and foreign residencies: London, Helsinki, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing (among others)

Shared professorship at the HSLU Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art, Switzerland (until 2025)
Visiting professorship for New Media at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany (2003)
Member of the Commission for Art in Public Space (KKiöR) of the City of Zurich, Switzerland

About works / performance

Studer/van den Berg have been working together as an artist duo since 1991 in the field of new media. They are considered pioneers of digital media and net art in Switzerland. Their joint body of work, which has been featured in many international venues, is characterized by hybrid spaces and fictional narratives. Using genuine software developments, game engines, renderings, realtime animations, interactive livecam installations, immersive AR/VR applications, and AI, they create imaginative scenarios that reflect on the usage of both everyday and artistic imagery, and challenge current developments in digital media. They also like to develop Internet-based projects, which are often combined with physical extensions in real space.

Studer/van den Berg first gained recognition with their Internet project Hotel Vue des Alpes (2000), whose visual world they later brought to life in the Swiss Pavilion at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi. In recent years, their work has taken a speculative turn toward posthumanist themes, exploring coexistence between humans, fungi, and machines, as well as emerging forms of consciousness in digital beings.

One of the long-term projects the artists are currently interested in is an imaginary institute named FOWDIB, which is the pivot point in a large-scale historical fabrication about the evolution of machine intelligence.