Ubermorgen

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UBERMORGEN
UBERMORGEN.COM lizvlx & Hans Bernhard with Guantanamo Bay Prison Guard Chris Arendt.png
UBERMORGEN lizvlx & Luzius Bernhard with Guantanamo Bay Prison Guard Chris Arendt
BornEstablished 1995
Education University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Known for Installation, Internet Art, Video, Photography, Performance
Notable work Voteauction, Nazi~Line, EKMRZ-Trilogy, Generator Tetralogy, CLICKISTAN, Asylabwehramt, Superenhanced, WOPPOW, The Next Biennial Should Be Curated by a Machine, PMC Wagner Arts, UNINVITED
MovementMedia Hacking, [1] Conceptual Art, net.art, Internet Art, Software Art
Awards ARCO Beep, Ars Electronica, IBM, Swiss Art Award
Vote-Auction Seal, 200 x 200 cm, digital print on canvas, 2000 Vote-Auction Seal.jpg
Vote-Auction Seal, 200 x 200 cm, digital print on canvas, 2000
GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself - Installation, The Premises Gallery, Johannensburg, 2005 GWEI Installation The Premises Gallery Johannesburg.jpg
GWEI – Google Will Eat Itself – Installation, The Premises Gallery, Johannensburg, 2005
TORTURE CLASSICS Installation Basel, mixed media, 2011 TORTURE CLASSICS Installation, Basel, June 2011.png
TORTURE CLASSICS Installation Basel, mixed media, 2011
Lizvlx & Billie-Ada from UBERMORGEN during a performance in Damascus, Syria Lizvlx & Billie-Ada from UBERMORGEN.COM during a performance in Damascus, Syria.png
Lizvlx & Billie-Ada from UBERMORGEN during a performance in Damascus, Syria
Luzius Bernhard inside Sound of eBay Installation, Madrid, 2009 Hans Bernhard inside Sound of eBay Installation, Madrid, 2009.png
Luzius Bernhard inside Sound of eBay Installation, Madrid, 2009

UBERMORGEN is a Swiss-Austrian-American digital art group founded in 1995, composed of Liz "lizvlx" Haas, Luzius Bernhard, Billie Bernhard and Lola Bernhard. [2] [3] They live and work in Basel, S-chanf near St. Moritz and in Vienna, where both lizvlx and Luzius Bernhard are professors at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. [4] [5] Their work has been presented across a wide range of contexts including museums, biennials, galleries, universities and online platforms. They have received several awards such as the PAX Art Award 2023. [6]

Contents

The group's practice originated in 1990s net.art and internet art avant-garde. [7] In the 2000s they became associated with online actionism and media hacking. [8] [9] [10] Since the mid-2000s their work has included installations, software art [11] and research-oriented projects. [12] In the 2020s they have focused on large-scale projects involving blockchain technology, machine learning and AI-generated aesthetics. [13]

Their work frequently engages with contemporary technological systems. Critical interpretations of their practice have noted their use of affirmation, irony and ambiguity. [9] [14]

Work

net.art

Their earliest works were part of the avantgarde Net.art movement (etoy, [15] [16] 1994–1998, 194.152.164.137, [17] 1996) and were exclusively shown online (World Wide Web/WWW). [18] [19] This work became part of the Internet art and Digital art history and is researched at universities (dissertations, thesis) [20] [21] and taught in (Art history). [22]

Media Hacking & Digital Actionism

Their early works were Media Hacking [23] [24] projects using low-tech tools to reach very large audiences. During the work on their best known project Voteauction (2000) CNN.com called them "Maverick Austrian Businessmen". [25] The project resulted in an onslaught of lawsuits issued by Illinois, Texas, Arizona, California, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. [26]

In 2001, they started a collaboration with Christoph Schlingensief for the development and staging of a Hamlet project in Zurich: NAZI~LINE, a bigger than life fake neo-Nazi helpline and exit strategy finding agency.

Injunction Generator

The Injunction Generator is an artistic software module by UBERMORGEN which claims to generate on request legal injunctions and personalized documentation in .rtf/.pdf format to force a website into taking its contents offline.

Carrying on with their principles of "radical corporative marketing strategy" (media hacking), the artists produced an effective and credible interface which helps creating one's own documented cease-and-desist request, which is then automatically sent to the DNS administrators, to the site's owner and to some journalists to trick them into supporting the "public trial".

The project is published at ipnic.org, an acronym which mimics the official protocols (Internet Protocol - Network Information Center), revisited as "Internet Partnership for No Internet Content".

This sarcastic provocation (a "public shutdown service") was conceived after experiencing a similar mishap during the Voteauction art project, which in 2000 invited American citizens to put up their vote for auction. At the time an email injunction by an American court was sent to the Swiss internet service provider hosting the site, who immediately took them offline even though emailed documents aren't legally considered official and even though Switzerland is outside of American jurisdiction.

Conceptual Actionism

In 2005 they started the EKMRZ Trilogy, a series of conceptual hacks (GWEI [27] [28] – Google Will Eat Itself, Amazon Noir and The Sound of eBay ).

Research Performance

Between 2007–2011 their focus went into research-based productions (Superenhanced, WOPPOW, KRAFT Series) [29] and Rock Art productions such as TORTURE CLASSICS [30] and CLICKISTAN (commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art). [31] They started to work extensively with video during this period.

In 2013 they released The Project Formerly Known As Kindle Forkbomb.

Happy Dystopia

In 2021 UBERMORGEN collaborated with digital humanist Leonardo Impett and curator Joasia Krysia through a series of machine learning experiments on the project The Next Biennial Should Be Curated by a Machine. [32]

UNINVITED was a collaboration between UBERMORGEN and Nye Thompson, which is described as "a horror film for machine networks and human-machine organisms" [33] and was presented as a film and video installation in exhibitions, and can be viewed online. [34]

Ubermorgen was comissioned by the KW INstitute of Contemporary Art Berlin between 2023 and 2024. They showed the work PMC Wagner Arts at the "Poetics of Encryption" exhibition. [35] [36] [37]

At the Busan Biennale 2024 they exhibited their work The Silver Singularity. The work was the last in their Happy Dystopia series [13] . They released a Manifesto on Happy Dystopia on the KUNSTFORUM International website. [38]

Exhibitions

Since 1999 their work has been shown in museums and galleries in Europe, America, Africa, Australia and Asia. That includes venues such as SFMOMA, Centre Pompidou, Konsthall Malmoe, NTT ICC Museum Tokyo, Gwangju Design Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, MUMOK Vienna, Ars Electronica Linz, WRO Media Art Biennale Wrocław, MoCA Taipei, Witte de With Rotterdam, Lentos Art Museum Linz, Biennale of Sydney, ARCO Madrid and the New Museum New York. [39]

They have been represented by Fabio Paris Brescia, [DAM] Berlin and Carroll / Fletcher London. Their primary NFT platform is Objkt. [40]

Life and career

Lizvlx and Luzius Bernhard are an artist duo [41] [42] but also a couple in private life. [43] They are engaged and have two children, Billie-Ada (2003) and Lola Mae (2007).

Lizvlx was born in Linz (AT) and grew up in Wels, Salzburg and Elmira (Upstate New York). Luzius Bernhard was born at the Yale University Hospital in New Haven (USA), grew up in New Haven and Basel (CH) and moved to Vienna (AT) to study with Prof. Peter Weibel, and later on with Prof. Lev Manovich (UCSD), Prof. Peter Lunenfeld (Art Center College of Design) Pasadena and Prof. Bazon Brock (emeritus) de:Bazon Brock (Wuppertal) and completed his studies in 1999.

Both Lizvlx and Luzius Bernhard have assumed different alias. Known alias of Luzius are: hans_extrem, etoy.HANS, etoy.BRAINHARD, David Arson, Dr.Andreas Bichlbauer, net_CALLBOY, Andy Bichlbaum. [44] [45]

Lizvlx and Luzius Bernhard were professors at Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). [46] They are currently professors at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the Digital Arts department. [47] In 2015 Luzius was a guest professor and Jury member at the Kunsthochschule Kassel.

Due to his drug abuse and a manic episode in Cape Town 2002, Luzius Bernhard was diagnosed bipolar. [48] [49] [50]

The collaboration with both their children (Superenhanced [51] [52] & Spielendes Baby – Schlafendes Baby (original title) [53] ), the inclusion of Luzius's mental illness and the merger of private and public life led some critics and academics to consider UBERMORGEN as a Gesamtkunstwerk. [54]

Important personal and artistic influences were early meetings with Jean Tinguely, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Spoerri and Eberhard W. Kornfeld in the Basel art scene of the 1980s and with Niki de Saint Phalle [55] in St. Moritz, and the long-time relationship (going back to 1916 during the first world war and the purchase of a Giovanni Giacometti painting by the grand-grandfather of Luzius Bernhard) with the Giacometti family (Giovanni Giacometti, Alberto Giacometti) in the nearby mountain valleys Val Bregaglia and Engadin in the canton Grisons in Switzerland. [56]

Network

Over the last 15 years UBERMORGEN has been part of the global contemporary technology art scene. Some mentionable connections and collaborations from this period: Net.Artists Alexei Shulgin, [57] Heath Bunting, [58] Olia Lialina, Vuk Ćosić and with contemporary artists Aram Bartholl, Paolo Cirio, James Powderly [59] and Evan Roth from Free Art and Technology Lab and Graffiti Research Lab, Franco and Eva Mattes (0100101110101101.org), IRWIN, Franz West, Janez Janša, Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom), Carsten Nicolai, Minerva Cuevas, The Yes Men, [60] Zhang Peili, Jodi, Miltos Manetas, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Trevor Paglen, Douglas Rushkoff, Lev Manovich, Olga Goriunova, Nicolas Bourriaud, Addie Wagenknecht [61] , Aldo Chaparro [62] , Melissa Logan (Chicks on Speed) [61] , Kevin Abosch [63] , Auriea Harvey [64] , Casey Reas, Knowbotic Research [65] , Constant Dullaart [66] , Damjanski, Donna Kukama, Echo Can Luo [63] , Dragan Espenschied, Eric Paulos, Exonemom, Jan Robert Leegte, Jean Peters, Julia Scher, PSJM, Shimurabros, Shu Lea Cheang and Tamiko Thiel.

Publications

Awards

References and notes

  1. ↑ Carina Plath, Westfälischer Kunstverein (ed), Futurologischer Kongress, Frankfurt am Main 2006 ( ISBN   978-3-86588-468-8)
  2. ↑ Adam Wishart, Regula Bochsler, Leaving Reality Behind: etoy vs eToys.com & other battles to control cyberspace, Ecco, 2003 ( ISBN   978-0066210766)
  3. ↑ "When Operations Become Form. – Engagée – The blog of the journal engagée, committed to political-philosophical interventions" . Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  4. ↑ Haas, Liz Univ.-Prof. Mag. rer. soc. oec. - Contact - dieAngewandte
  5. ↑ Bernhard, Luzius Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. - Contact - dieAngewandte
  6. ↑ "Schweizer Medienkunst – Pax Art Awards 2023 | kultur-online". kultur-online.net. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  7. ↑ "UBERMORGEN". Abandon Normal Devices. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  8. ↑ Bernhard, Hans; Lizvlx; Ludovico, Alessandro (2009). Ubermorgen.com: media hacking vs. conceptual art. Basel: C. Merian. ISBN   978-3-85616-460-7.
  9. 1 2 Quaranta, Domenico (2011). In your computer: or how I learned to love art that comes to you through your computer screen, and why you should learn to love it as well. Breskia: Link Ed. ISBN   978-1-4467-6021-5.
  10. ↑ UBERMORGEN.COM at CRE/Chaos Radio with Tim Pritlove (German)
  11. ↑ Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin (eds), THE READ_ME Software Art & Cultures, Aarhus 2004 ( ISBN   978-87-988440-4-4)
  12. ↑ "UBERMORGEN - Announcements". e-flux. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  13. 1 2 "UBERMORGEN". Phileas. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  14. ↑ "UBERMORGEN.COM: CLICKISTAN". whitney.org. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  15. ↑ The Guardian, Excerpted from Leaving Reality Behind by Adam Wishart and Regula Bochsler (Fourth Estate)
  16. ↑ AG Borderline-Kongress (ed), BORDERLINE – Strategien u. Taktiken f. Kunst u. soziale Praxis, Wiesbaden 2002, p.33-42, Reinhold Grether on"Wie die Etoy Kampagne gefuehrt wurde – ein Agentenbericht" ( ISBN   3-8311-3775-7)
  17. ↑ Archived October 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Authorized copy of 194.152.164.137, a collaborative project by lizvlx and Andrea Mayr
  18. ↑ Christian Ulrik Andersen, Soeren Bro Pold (eds), Interface Criticism. Aesthetics Beyond Buttons, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus 2011 ( ISBN   978-8779345041)
  19. ↑ [ dead link ] Exhibition Catalogue Connessioni Leggendarie, Net.Art 1995–2005, ready+made publisher, online version, PDF, Digimag09/NOV05, Review by Marco Mancuso
  20. ↑ Archived December 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Whitney_Museum_of_American_Art, 2010 Annual Fund Project, About the artists
  21. ↑ Das_Kunstwerk_der_Zukunft Inga Reimers writes in her masters thesis "(Selbst-)Inszenierung – Praxis – Kunst. Eine kulturwissenschaftliche Annäherung an das „hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk ubermorgen.com“ about the relation of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" and Richard Wagner "Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft" Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine , Universität Hamburg, 2009
  22. ↑ Interview with Wolf Lieser about: "WOLF LIESER – DIGITAL ART – NEUE WEGE IN DER KUNST/THE WORLD OF DIGITAL ART", h.f. ullmann publisher / DAM Berlin – Galerie für Digitale Kunst, 2010
  23. ↑ Lentos Museum of Modern Art (ed), Just do it!, Edition Selene, Vienna 2005 ( ISBN   3-85266-267-2)
  24. ↑ "Netzpiraten. Die Kultur des elektronischen Verbrechens", Armin Medosch and Janko Röttgers, Heise / Telepolis, [V]ote-auction, Ars Electronica Jury-Hack and etoy, p. 69-88 ( ISBN   388229-188-5)
  25. ↑ "Vote-selling Web site to be revived, possibly offshore". CNN.com. August 2000. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
  26. ↑ Steinberg, Monica (July 3, 2021). "Coercive Disobedience: Art and Simulated Transgression" . Art Journal. 80 (3): 78–99. doi:10.1080/00043249.2021.1920288. ISSN   0004-3249. S2CID   237576098.
  27. ↑ Slavo Krekovic, Will Google Eat Itself? Archived July 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine , Springerin.at
  28. ↑ Culture Jamming – Interview with Hans Bernhard
  29. ↑ UBERMORGEN.COM Manifesto Archived December 12, 2010, at the Wayback Machine , RC1 (release-copy 1) presented at "Positions in Flux" Symposium, The Netherlands Media Art Institute Amsterdam, 8.5.2009, published online Vienna, 28.7.2009
  30. ↑ TORTURE CLASSICS PROJECT 2010, UBERMORGEN.COM feat. James Powderly
  31. ↑ CLICKISTAN PROJECT 2010
  32. ↑ "The Next Biennial Should Be Curated by a Machine - Announcements". e-flux. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  33. ↑ "UNINVITED | 19 November 2021 - 29 January 2022". Gazelli Art House. Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  34. ↑ "UNINVITED". uninvited.icu. Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  35. ↑ "ЧВК Вагнер Артс". www.pmcwagner.art. Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  36. ↑ "Online Worlds Are Artistic Material and Battleground in a New Exhibition". Artnet News. May 13, 2024. Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  37. ↑ "Poetics of Encryption - Ausstellungen - KW Institute for Contemporary Art". www.kw-berlin.de (in German). Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  38. ↑ "Happy Dystopia". www.kunstforum.de (in German). Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  39. ↑ Alessandro Ludovico (ed), UBERMORGEN.COM – MEDIA HACKING VS. CONCEPTUAL ART, Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2009 ( ISBN   978-3856164607), p.198-299
  40. ↑ "objkt.com". objkt.com. Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  41. ↑ Art Daily "Artist Duo Ubermorgen.com Celebrate Tenth Anniversary with New Book"
  42. ↑ AG Borderline-Kongress (ed), BORDERLINE – Strategien u. Taktiken f. Kunst u. soziale Praxis, Wiesbaden 2002, p.21-32 ( ISBN   3-8311-3775-7)
  43. ↑ Media Art Net / Medienkunstnetz, artist biography UBERMORGEN.COM
  44. ↑ "Art and Time | Media |" . Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  45. ↑ "Netactivist". Design Indaba. Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  46. ↑ "Ehemalige Lehrende - KHM". www.khm.de (in German). Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  47. ↑ "Institute Detail - dieAngewandte". angewandte.at. Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  48. ↑ Archived May 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine HOLY FIRE, Art at the digital age, Psych|OS project, Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia
  49. ↑ Archived October 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Scriptum, first UM.COM/Hans Bernhard lecture on "Drugs&Art" after the manic episode 2002, University_of_Applied_Arts_Vienna
  50. ↑ Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Psych|OS Cycle by UBERMORGEN.COM, 2001–2010
  51. ↑ Superenhanced project, Archived January 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Superenhanced Generator
  52. ↑ Keynote & Superenhanced Installation at [ISEA]09 in [Belfast], [Northern Ireland]
  53. ↑ Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Archived October 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Project website and images, Installation exhibited 18.2. – 29.2.2004 at [Kunsthaus Graz]
  54. ↑ Archived July 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Cornelia Sollfrank, 2009, "Das Genie von übermorgen"
  55. ↑ Archived August 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Niki de Saint Phalle 29.10.1930 Neuilly – 21.5.2002 San Diego
  56. ↑ Letters, photos, sales contract and the painting are in the ownership of the Bernhard/Pernisch/Plattner family, archived in S-Chanf and Basel/Switzerland
  57. ↑ Bringing Capitalism and Democracy Closer Together, HANS BERNHARD / Ubermorgen Interviewed by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin
  58. ↑ OVERGADEN Institute of Contemporary Art in collaboration with Artnode, parallel solo exhibitions Heath Bunting/UBERMORGEN.COM
  59. ↑ TORTURECLASSICS.COM, UBERMORGEN.COM feat. James Powderly, Korea music torture performance 2010 and Beerboarding Performance Ars Electronica Linz
  60. ↑ Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Funding and collaboration "Salzburg" WTO/GATT.ORG Stunt, 2000
  61. 1 2 "BA & MFA in Digital Arts with UBERMORGEN - Announcements". e-flux. Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  62. ↑ "Mexico – Aldo Chaparro" . Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  63. 1 2 "Digitale Kunst - dieAngewandte". www.dieangewandte.at (in German). Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  64. ↑ Kent, Charlotte (June 10, 2022). "NFTs Can Be Artistically Groundbreaking — Meet the Artists and Curators Leading The Way". ARTnews.com. Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  65. ↑ "We=Link: Sideways | ZKM". zkm.de. Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  66. ↑ "150 –– UBERMORGEN | Constant Dullaart · panke.gallery". www.panke.gallery. Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  67. ↑ Art_Foundation_Pax, “Award Winners”. HEK_(Haus_der_Elektronischen_Künste), Münchenstein/Basel, “PAX Art Awards 2023”.
  68. ↑ , Archived October 3, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Archived September 4, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Oldest and most prestigious Award for Swiss Artists, exhibition and award ceremony during ART Basel
  69. ↑ .NewArt { foundation;}, “ARCO – BEEP Electronic Art Award”, Fourth edition. „Am Kunstmarkt von Übermorgen“, in: Der Standard, 15.05.2009.
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