Bigert/Bergström: Engaged Cool Duo from Stockholm
DocAlliance and its excellent vod initiative has for years been promoted on this website and here is (a bit late, sorry, but it’s weekend and maybe you have time…) one more copy-paste of a fine offer from “your online documentary cinema” – to watch FOR FREE works by a duo of artists from Sweden until September 20. Go for it:
Mats Bigert (1965) and Lars Bergström (1962) have formed an artistic duo since their studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Besides documentaries, their work also includes exhibitions, conceptual art and installations in public space. In 1993, they participated in the Venice Biennale with their installation Adrenaline Dream and have exhibited their work across the world ever since. They often deal with current social and climatic issues. Discover the Swedish duo through their films for free!
During their successful career, Bigert & Bergström’s have produced a large
number of artworks. Their sculptures and installations are often based on digital technologies and intended for interaction, changing their shape or colour after being touched or according to the weather. By placing unexpected objects in public space, the artists change the context of places where people pass every day. For instance, they have placed their artwork Tomorrow’s Weather at the Stockholm Central Station. They hung giant molecules of H2O, C2 and N2 which change their colour according to the weather forecast for the following day. Another transformation of the public space called Ecco Humor consisted in placing a large curved mirror in the underground parking lot of Dunkers Culture House in Helsingborg, Sweden. The fifty-metre-wide and six-metre-high wall of super reflective stainless steel is the largest of its kind in the world.
Their latest film from the past year is entitled MOMENTS OF SILENCE. It captures moments in which the world stops and falls silent for a minute or two. The film is compiled of archive footage of minutes of silence honouring the victims of conflicts or natural disasters.
In 2002–2012, the duo made a loose trilogy about the human obsession with control. The first film entitled LIFE EXTENDED (PHOTO) follows the desire to live forever, introducing a gerontologist who believes that humanity will be immortal soon, a monk who prepares his soul for its posthumous journey by long marathons and architects who construct spaces that slow down ageing. The middle part of the trilogy, THE MOUSE, deals with the ancient relationship between men and mice. It presents the fields in which we meet these small rodents and shows that we would have zero knowledge of genetics without laboratory texts. The third part follows climatic change and its impact. In THE WEATHER WAR, the directors travel to the US with a special machine-sculpture called Tornado Diverter whose goal is to stop tornados. The film deals with the theme of climate change and human influence on it in general.
LAST SUPPER captures the tradition of a final meal before an execution, ironically alluding to the original biblical dimension of the phrase. The protagonist is a former prison chef who used to prepare the last meal for the convicts. The film combines documentary scenes, interviews and animated sequences.
