Who Is Axel Stockburger

Axel Stockburger is a world-class Austrian-born artist who also works in London. He graduated from the University of Applied Arts in the Austrian capital of Vienna and continued education at the University of Arts, London where he was awarded a PhD degree.

The artist has been a part of many international projects both as an artist and researcher. From 2000 to 2004, he worked closely with the D-Fuse audiovisual art group from London, mainly on international projects. In 1998, he helped establish art television channel called TIV that is based in Vienna.

Besides being an artist, Axel Stockburger is also a researcher. Currently, he works at the Department for Visual Arts and Digital Media of the Academy of Fine ArArts in Vienna as a member of the Department’s scientific staff.

Most Famous Works

Video game warriors (1998-2003). Axel Stockburger is probably best known for his late 1990s and early 2000s video installations of “video game warriors”, a series of video portraits of video and computer game players. These video installations capture the reactions, movements and facial expressions of the players which represent the virtual world. Besides the faces of the players, the sounds of the games are the only evidence that a video/computer game is being played. Stockburger did, however, take his installations of video gaming further with the so-called Ork Warrior (2011) in which he focuses on a wider aspect of video game playing including the game itself and the movements of the player who is shown with a mask of the avatar from the game.
Boys in the Hood (2005). This video installation further reveals the artist’s interest in computer games. But rather that capturing the reactions and movements of the players or the controversial game Grand Theft Auto, the video consists of a series of interviews with the players and their view of the game by which he shows another dimension of video gaming as well as the connection between real and virtual worlds.
Jingshenfenxi (2010). A three-channel video installation which was created in association with Lisa Meixner during Stockburger’s residency in China deals with the relationship of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and Chinese culture. The installation consists of a presentation of a depressed panda, an interview with professor Datong about psychoanalysis and Chinese translation of psychoanalysis in the linguistic sense.