Markus Aebersold & Chris Handberg

“…the more there is”

Markus Aebersold and Chris Handberg have created an audiovisual composition as an exploration of aural and imaginary spaces. Influenced by conditions of isolation - the text was in fact written during the artists' lockdown period in Iceland - the work invites the viewer to immerse themselves in a guided meditative experience. The artists ask whether the imagined experiences are more or less real than the lived ones, and by analogy they ask whether virtual, online experiences are less or as incisive as real-world experiences. To what extent can imagined spaces and objects convey meanings if they are never communicated or shared with other individuals?

The work is accessible on HEK's Vimeo, the artists encourage viewers to use headphones, and to play the video in full screen.

In their artistic practice Markus Aebersold and Chris Handberg investigate the relationships between the technological and the spiritual human being. Topics such as digital anxiety, faith in science, hope and reality are pervasive to the problems they explore. They work with the bridges that our senses make between virtual, physical and mental space and our ability to believe in all three simultaneously.

The duo's artistic dialogue produces works, which are a materialisation of shared memories of a non-existent technological mythology. The works are at the same time monuments, representations, as well as materialisations of these myths. Markus Aebersold (*1988 CH) and Chris Handberg (*1989 DK) live and work in Basel, where they graduated together from the Institute of Art HGK FHNW in 2017. In 2020 they were nominated for the Swiss Emerging Artist Prize and in 2021 for the Basel Media Art Prize.

In October and November, HEK Net Works will take the form of a 10-part NFT-manifesto by UBERMORGEN, the crypto manifesto tokens #1 - #10.