The comprehensive compilation art_clips.ch.at.de presents 90 video works from Switzerland, Austria and Germany made between 2000 and 2006. In search of a contemporary pictorial language for short, significant messages, the artists move across a broad field of optical research. Manifold media usage leads to an endless number of new compositions: by applying analog or digital, improvised or highly professional techniques surreal, abstract and realistic picture sequences emerge. In addition to the work with animation, documentation or performativity, for example, the interfaces of video and traditional artistic media, the interplay of the visual and the audio or the conditions of one’s own artistic production are also examined.
In their compression and concision, their frequently improvised appearance and non-commercial style, the art_clips move along the permeable interface of reception and production. The reference to internet video platforms (YouTube etc.), where anyone can be the author and publisher of media messages, becomes evident here. At the same time, however, questions also arise respecting the distinction between amateur- and art video.
In that the viewer zaps through the art_clips, he himself becomes actor in the media zone. Instead of his attention being commanded, as is the case with most TV channels, he is here active in the construction of the picture worlds.
(Text: Antonia Marten)

ZKM digital arts edition, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006
Editor: Gerhard Johann Lischka and ZKM Karlsruhe
editing/project direction: Thomas Thiel, Antonia Marten
DVD authoring: Andreas Brehmer
graphics: Renata Sas

Gerhard Johann Lischka/ZKM | Karlsruhe, art_clips.ch.at.de – 90 short videos from Switzerland, Austria and Germany, 2006, DVD publication, production: ZKM | Karlsruhe/Hatje Cantz Verlag