2010
2-channel-installation
10:00 min (2 min excerpts/installation view)
HD

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In this video installation we see different places of a city. In slow horizontal movements the camera pans across façades and greenery. It’s like an extended moment in the summer, at sunset, when a strong light is hitting the sceneries almost horizontally and dividing them in light and dark zones. People traverse from light to dark or vice versa, as if the overstepping of this border was something very significant or magical. The dark zones are getting only a dimension through the actors’ movements. They become figures appearing or disappearing from further away, from the depth of an undefined black space behind the façades. One could call it backstage or behind the scenes, where a parallel world seems to exist. It’s something like a time- and spaceless existence, where humans come from and go back into.

Premiere: solo show at Cinémathèque Québécoise Montréal/Canada, March 19th to April 25th 2010

2009
single channel video installation
5:50 min (4 min excerpt)
HDV

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Outside of Luxor the eye moves in a slow circle. People are standing in the desert, alone or in groups. Tourists descend from the sky in a large red balloon. The camera’s perspective corresponds to the gaze of a foreigner having a look around. A couple of details sail past, without for all that rendering the situation as a whole perceptible. The eye wanders on across the surface of the desert. Urban settlements come into view. An arrival is summed up in one long, slow pan, a touchdown on a strange planet, recounted from a horizontal perspective only gradually closing the gap between itself and its object.

1. Prize SCOPE Subject/Art Basel 2010, videoart

2009
Live Performance with Ahmad El-Sawy (oud, voice, electronics, composition) and video-projection
or single channel video
45:00 min (3 min excerpt)
HDV

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Starting point is the legend of Sinbad and his journeys on the sea. What would Sinbad get to see if he’d be travelling nowadays? The cooperation of the Egyptian musician and the Swiss video artist combines two different view points: Ahmad El-Sawy has transferred Arabic poems into music. Some of those texts can be read as comment about our times dispite the fact that they originate from past centuries. The writers talk about home, rich and poor, religion and most importantly about the loss of the own culture.
Christoph Oertli has shot video images during two longer stays in Egypt and compressed these images into a visual strand, which resembles a journey through different centuries: landscapes, urban scenes and ultramodern building complexes slowly drift past the camera. A young man embodies todays’ Sinbad; occasionally he’s travelling within his own country, but he undertakes as well virtual journeys at his computer, since means and possibilities are missing for travelling abroad.

2008
2-channel video installation
1:30 min / silent
HDV

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Two parallel images show a woman in relation with an exhibited object. An attempt to catch some of the essence of ‘being alive’.

performer: Chun-Hwei Lin

2008
single channel-video or 2-channel-installation
11:00 min (6 min excerpt)
HDV

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Two men walk through a former hospital.The camera follows one man until he comes across the other. Their meetings vary from distant and casual to friendly and intimate. The state of the empty building changes very suddendly: it’s falling apart.

performer: Rüdiger Böß, Marco Zbinden

sounddesign: Thomas Jeker

nominated for ‘Basler Filmpreis 2009′, category ‘videoart’

2007
single channel video
9:00 min (5 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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The camera eye is overlooking one day of Taxila’s life. She walks in the street, sits with friends at the table, goes to sleep, climbs at night out of the window and approaches a tree in the courtyard. By looking back, internal and external voices mix to an incomplete report. The smile of the afternoon faces the dark front of humans, who used to be close friends.

performer: Danaé Verlet, Tristan Christann, Ursula Llewelyn, Usman Saeed, Ryad Slimani, Akira Tsukada

sounddesign: Thomas Jeker

2006
single channel video
11:00 min (5 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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Christoph Oertli’s video shows a person walking very slowly through the bustling city, quiet suburbs and peaceful rooftops of Cairo. As the districts change, so does the walker who continues his measured pace while observing the world around him without interaction. The environmental sound changes from noisy traffic to silence (d/Art/07 Sydney).

performer: Mohammed Aladin, Mazin Algizoly, Omar Ghayatt, Adham Hafez, Diyaaldin Helmy, Roby, Mohammed Sadik, Tarek Shalaby, Mohammed Roshdy.

1er prix Vidéoformes, Clermont-Ferrand/France (2008)

2005
single channel video
4:00 min
SD Pal

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Series of short videos interpreting pop songs: ‘Song for Alice’ by Keren Ann.

Alice: The sequence shot evokes a street at night and a fire of which one believes responsible a homeless woman. An installation with suspended hairdryers and flying plastic bags as stagecraft elements.

performer: Christoph Oertli

2005
single channel video
9:50 min (5 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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The video shows a group of men, gathered in the hall of a public building. The men speak, laugh and observe. Some leave and return later; they behave strangely. The unconscious rules of social behavior are disrupted by unexpected dynamics and gestures.

performer: Jean-Paul Bezzina, Mauro Bordin, Nicolas Buchoux, Nicolas Carpentier, Massimo Carrozzo, Daniel Collados, Antoine Colnot, Jean-Marc Coudert, Alexandre Delawarde, David Gierten, Jean-Christophe Laurier, Franklin Roulot, Ydire Saïdi, David Seigneur, Gregor Siber, Clemens Stolzenberg, Jonas Zipf.

sounddesign: Thomas Jeker

2004
single channel video
8:00 min (4:40 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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A living room at night, selectivley furnished. No trace of inhabitants. A naked young man repeatedly crosses the space. He lies down on a sofa. He puts a dish on the table. He acts like a stranger who has crept into the house. Furniture trembles, appears, disappears as if moved by an invisible hand. The intimacy and nearness to the man’s body contrasts sharply with the view seen from outside; we are actually looking through a shop window.

performer: Clément Pelletier

2003
single channel video
6:30 min (4:30 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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In a public space a man suddenly stands still. Apparently he has lost trust in immediate reality. He’s not able anymore to take one step further. He clutches at thin air. He still feels threatened despite the tidiness of the impersonal furniture around him. There will be an attempt to get this man back into the present.

performer: Emmanuel Landier, Jean-Christophe Laurier

2002
single channel video
7:30 min
SD Pal

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In this piece the performer is linked with a mobile camera via a nylon thread. Each of his gestures pulls the camera sideways and animates his image. A strange dance develops which throws the performer off-centre or even out of sight. His appearance on stage is undermined by his own effort. Each impulse to act threatens his position in the spotlight.

performer: Christoph Oertli

V.I.D. (Video in der Dampfzentrale)-award Bern (2003)

2001
single channel video
7:00 min (excerpt of 4:30 min)
SD Pal

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Different fragments of furniture and lamps are moving suspended in an open space. ‚Housekeeping‘ explores what is a home. Some create their home, some abandon it and some look for it for a lifetime. What do we surround ourselves with? How much structure, rhythm, security, obligation and responsibility belong to our idea of home? The individual participates in a ruling system. Sometimes what looks like an enviable situation can transform into threat.

performer: Christoph Oertli

1er prix Vidéoformes, Clermont-Ferrand/France (2003)

2000
single channel video
6:00 min
SD Pal

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‘Yellowknife’ catapults the viewer out into the void of nothingness leaving behind vanishing traces of light. One can see a trembling face and beads that are chased through the dark by small explosions. The video oscillates between spacial and temporal dimensions. Tangible, concrete moments that stand next to the unfathomable.

performer: Christoph Oertli

sounddesign: Daniel Almada

1999
single channel video
12:00 (5 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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This video is about the paradox between relating to the infinite and being confined to the present moment. Felix is at the end of a love affair. He would like to escape this painful feeling by changing his outlook on life: would it be possible to redefine himself in another situation or another time by changing his identity? Felix feels trapped and he would like to free himself. A monochrome portrait captures only a brief moment in someone’s life.

performer: Christoph Oertli

1997
single channel documentary video
58:00 min (3 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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The life of an international crew on a cruise ship: young people from Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, Indonesia and the Philippines tell about theire experiences. While the ship is travelling around the world, the centre of attention is given to the existence inside the ship. Fractions of the journey appear incidentally. Everyday life on the ship is hardly influenced by the journey. It’s a world on it’s own!

award Film- und Videotage Basel (1997)

1995
single channel video
12:00 min (4:40 min excerpt)
SD Pal

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‚Carmelo’ is a personal journey through an inner world, showing emotional moments as the trigger for desires and dreams. A visual and acoustic investigation into seductive moments.

performer: Plastik Patrick, Michael Donges, Markus Müller, Marcel Rohde

1994
single channel video
4:00 min
SD Pal

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A video piece to listen to, composed with voices of three women. Sounds and images originate from interviews with each of the women in a fantasy language. The editing is based on a musical composition, which was developped from the interview material. This video puts the main focus on sound and leaves the images secondary. For once the audio track determines the drama and is only complemented by the visual images.

performer: Clara Buntin, Magdalena Furrer, Anita Pfister