Dagmar Keller from Germany and Martin Wittwer from Switzerland are accomplished media artists whose works have gained them international recognition. Since 1997 they've worked together, creating art that deals with the human yearning for spiritual liberation amid the confines of earthly existence.

For their latest exhibition "What's Love Got To Do With It?", Keller and Wittwer offer five video installations at the PSG Gallery in Silpakorn University. The first is called "Say Hello to Peace and Tranquility" (2001), in which the camera pans perpetually across an immaculate suburban setting of houses and empty streets.

To begin with, everything seems to be fine - nothing out of place in this orderly picture of modern life. But then a feeling of unease starts to creep over the viewer. There is something too artificial in the sterile cleanliness and the absence of any living presence in the scene.

The contrast between the surface and what lies beneath is what makes the work captivating, but also uncanny. Here is a world where everything is ambiguous - familiar objects like houses seem alien and without substance and, although we are projected forwards into the future by the constant movement of the camera from left to right, there is no sense of actual progress. We're left with the sensation of being stuck in some eternal wormhole. Keller and Wittwer give us an intensely strange and complex experience of time and this is what lends the work that otherworldly experience.

Another projection screens "What You Want to See" (2006), this time scanning a cityscape at night. The initial feeling is one of warmth, even romance, but again, we gradually realise that things aren't quite what they seem.

Against the sounds of nighttime television, we hear a man and a woman speaking to each other in broken English on a bad line, constantly having to repeat themselves. This absurd encounter expresses the idea of miscommunication and feeling out of place in a foreign land.

Keller and Wittwer's aptitude for reflecting their immediate environment in their art enables them to gain new insight when working in different countries. In Bangkok they've created "Alles Wird Gut" ("Everything Will Be Fine") using kong tek - paper houses used in Chinese funeral rituals, which are burnt to ensure the deceased will be safe in the afterlife. This time, the film runs backwards with the houses slowly being revived from the flames in a kind of renewal process.

"Alles Wird Gut" can be viewed as the culmination of the other works on show at the Bangkok exhibition, with a theme that has interested the couple for several years.

Their photography, video and installation works have been widely exhibited across Asia and Europe, with recent shows in Taipei, Bangalore, Paris and Brussels.

"What's Love Got To Do With It?" continues until September 8 at PSG Gallery, Silpakorn University on Naa Phralan Road. The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 7pm. Call (02) 221 0820.

intin Cooper

Special to The Nation