Born in 1962 as “Elisabeth Charlotte Rist”, Pipilotti grew up in St. Gallen, Switzerland, which is about 30 kilometers from where Switzerland borders Liechtenstein, and is separated in part by the Rhine River.  Due to her origins in Switzerland, which not only borders the Principality of Liechtenstein, but also Germany, France, Austria, and Italy, Pipilotti speaks multiple languages including English, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and her mother tongue, German.  She also speaks “Swiss-German”, which is an Alemannic dialect spoken in northern parts of Switzerland where German is also spoken.  As a child, Pipilotti loved to build things in various spaces.  To her, it was like building a city, only her childhood builds did not last as long as a city.  She developed a great appreciation for construction and enjoys collecting and using tools now as an adult.  Longing to be a boy, she would call herself “Elisabeth John” and “Pierre” and eventually became known as “Pipilotti” after combining her childhood nickname “Lotti” with Astrid Lindgren’s “Pippi” (Longstocking), which her classmates would call her because of her evident feminine strength and fearlessness, which gave her likeness to the storybook character.  She was the second of five children, and the only one amongst her siblings to attend high school and college.  

In 1982, Pipilotti went to Vienna with the intention of studying physics, which was her strongest subject in high school.  She had no aspirations of studying or practicing art.  She chose to go to Vienna because she wanted to leave Switzerland, and preferred a German speaking school.  According to her, she likes to work in German, not only because it’s her mother tongue, “but it is extremely precise”, which she stated in a 2001 interview with Claire Bishop for MAKE Magazine.  While attending school, Pipilotti was inspired by the short films of Stan VanDerBeek, Norman McLaren, and John Waters and became interested in experimental filmmaking.  After one semester, she refocused her studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria, where she would go on to study photography, illustration, and commercial art for four years.  Then she studied videography in Switzerland at the Basel School of Design from 1982 to 1986 where she also secured a part-time position at Switzerland based Ciba-Geigy lab where they housed promotional video labs.  This allowed her the opportunity to learn how to use advanced video equipment at night, after work hours, where she eventually produced her first notable short film, “I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much”.  This adaptation of the 1968 ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ by the Beatles, combines the first line of John Lennon’s song with the sporadic dance movements of a girl seen through blurred and distorted camera effects as she repeats the phrase again and again at varying pitch and speed.   

Although Pipilotti saw “I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much” as her best work, she gained notoriety for her 1997 “Ever Is Over All” video where a woman is walking along a sidewalk with a flower in her hand.  She uses the flower to smash the windows of multiple parked cars, as she smiles and calmly interacts non-verbally with others in the scene who pass by, including a police officer who walks past her who waves and nods in approval of the obvious vandalism that the woman is performing.  But because they are both women, I perceive that the police officer and the woman share the same inner rage, empowerment, and passive aggressive misandry.  An instrumental portion of Andy Williams “I Can’t Get Used to Losing You” loops as the scene plays.  Pipilotti has said that the idea for this film came from a vulnerable moment where she was denied creative expression after being given carte blanche on a project.  The Chief Editor of 2U Magazine did not allow her to use an image she selected of an elderly woman for the cover.  Frustrated, she had a thought that she would smash his car in retaliation.  But then she realized and thought that he was not worth that; going to such extreme measures to release her own tension and get revenge.  She conveys this experience in “Ever is Over All” by taking the aggression she felt, and rechanneling it to project a “hopeful peace” in a manner that is consistent with normal, everyday movements and gestures, instead of a display of hostility and anger.  This moment, for Pipilotti, was her catharsis.

After graduation from the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria, Pipilotti was awarded the Premio 2000 Young Artist Award at the 47th Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy in 1997, where she exhibited alongside other contemporary artists from 59 countries.  A New York Times article by Roberta Smith titled, “Another Venice Biennale Shuffles to Life: Review” describes Pipilotti’s “Ever is Over All” film installation exhibit, stating that Pipilotti is turning music video into a serious art form with her ear for music, physical rhythm, and eye for color.  

Her film gained popularity and attention and was later channeled by American singer, songwriter, and performer, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter in her 2016 “Hold Up” video, where she is said to be conveying the disappointment, pain, and anger she felt as a result of her husband’s infidelity, which had become a public spectacle in the media.  Beyoncé, to my knowledge, has never publicly credited Pipilotti Rist as the inspiration for her work.  However, Pipilotti Rist fans such as myself, as well as popular media outlets including, The New Yorker,  MTV, and Independent UK, see the obvious connection between the two videos, and acknowledge Pipilotti’s innovative contribution to visual and performing arts, and to pop culture through her interdisciplinary research and video production.

Pipilotti has earned Honorary Professorships and received multiple nominations and awards, including the Zurich Film Award in 1992 as well as the Art Prize of the City of Zurich in 2001, and the Wolfgang Hahn Prize in 1999.  She received an Honorary Professorship in 2004 at of the Universität der Künste in Berlin, Germany, and previously at the University of California in Los Angeles from 2002 to 2003, where she served as a visiting professor at the Department of Art and lectured as a member of the Art Council.  The UCLA Department of Art “empowers students to reshape their worlds through critical inquiry and transformative creativity”, according to their website at art.ucla.edu, and offers a wide range of courses including photography, art theory, and new genres to include performance art, and video installation.  Pipilotti Rist lectures internationally at accredited institutions and museums where she teaches students and young artists her belief that   “Art’s task is to contribute to evolution, to encourage the mind, to guarantee a detached view of social changes, to conjure up positive energies, create sensuousness, to reconcile reason and instinct, to research possibilities, to destroy clichés, and prejudices.”  She has demonstrated this through the eccentric and defiant nature of some of her work.

Not all of Pipilotti’s films are suitable for all audiences.  Some of her films go unseen and censored for their mature content.  She explored the controversial topic of pornography in 1992 during the introduction of the Pornography Victims’ Compensation Act that year.  Upset with the notion that porn was fundamentally misogynistic, and in rebellion against the feminist groups who would try to use their power to make decisions for others people by stopping pornography, Pipilotti, created “Pickelporno”.  Pickelporno is a single channel short film which begins with a man and a woman meeting and communicating with non verbal gestures, equally, and with mutual interest.  As the scene progresses, a camera moves along their (eventually) naked bodies, as they explore one another.  This encounter fades in and out of scenes of nature, as parts of their bodies seem to intertwine with vegetation, clouds, fire, water, and each other, depicting a natural encounter.  Pickelporno conveys that both participants are equally responsible for and in receipt of sexual pleasure and explores the chemistry and biological process of a sexual encounter from the inside, as opposed to the outside.  In a 2016 interview with ARTSPACE Magazine, Pipilotti explained, “When you watch sex from the outside, it is always much less interesting than when you are involved in it.  So I wanted to make a porn film from the inside.”  Similarly Pipilotti’s film “Another Body (from the Lobe of the Lung Family)” depicts the human body in its’ natural state prior to mankind’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

A more subtle, yet powerful depiction of femininity would be Pipottli’s 2011 art installation, “Cape Cod Chandelier”.  The chandelier, constructed of women’s cleaned and previously worn white underwear, which hangs in a circular, tiered fashion, is illuminated by a central white bulb, and 2 silent, colorful videos which are projected onto the collection of underwear.  This piece brings attention to the part of the female body where life commences; the hips.  In a 2020 article by Dea Cvetković, “Understanding Pipilotti Rist’s Dreamworld in 10 Art Installations”, Cvetković quotes Pippotli, “This part of the body is very sacred, the site of our entrance into the world, the centre of sexual pleasure and the location of the exits of the body’s garbage.”, which she also explains in a 2019 interview with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark titled, “Pipilotti Rist Interview: A Visit to the Studio”.  This concept was also used in Pipilotti’s 2011 installation, “Hiplights (or Enlightened Hips)” where several single, white undergarments were hung outdoors, and illuminated from within by white lights, much like street lamps.  Pipilotti expresses that this part of the body is perceived as heavy, so she wanted to place them up high, and make them seem lite.

Pipilotti, being an interdisciplinary artist, experiments and researches through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary methods.  Her studio is filled with various tools, fabrics, costumes, construction and crafting materials, bags, models, and works in progress.  She says that she is a big fan of construction, and ponders how many inventions resulted from the many tools; “scissors to cut the good from the bad.”  (Pipilotti Rist Interview: A Visit to the Studio.  Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, 01:04–01:21).  

Pipilotti uses an instrumental as well as conceptual approach in her art making process.  She combines natural elements with the human body, then uses color and size to intensify the image which alters our perception of her work and ultimately, the world around us.  There is no specific rule to how Pipilotti arrives at ideas for her work.  Some ideas come as a result of her personal experiences, challenges, and emotions, and other ideas are planned and well organized.  Sometimes she works with the music along with the image or film in relation to the space, and sometimes these are produced separately.  Once she has an idea, the process can be different for each.  Her installations combine visual art and architecture, so she pays close attention to perspective, because the bigger the screen, the bigger movement on the film appears, and the faster it seems to the audience.  Her larger than life film installations contradict the physical dimension of our bodies, which can take us out of our comfort zone where we are no longer in control of our environment in the presence of her work.  Her installations can also be found in unexpected places such as the ceiling or floor.  A great example of this is Pipilotti’s installation exhibit “Pixel Forest”, where she creates a mysterious environment of magical, seemingly levitating lights, which pulsate while projecting an image.  The image, although impossible to observe in its entirety, alters the hues and brightness of the lights, as visitors walk through.  Although visitors cannot perceive or interpret the image that is being projected as they walk through, it is considered a video installation.  Pipilotti primarily uses video installation to exhibit her work because it gives her the opportunity to incorporate any and every element she needs to use to convey her ideas, and where she can integrate and utilize her many skills.

Interdisciplinarity, as it pertains to arts and performance, is defined as “two or more art-making genres used to create or express a more complex concept/emotion/narrative toward the goal of a transformative result”.  Pipilotti Rist utilizes visual art, film, movement, and sound to create art as well as her use of broad elements of color and feminism.  But this is not feminism that can be classified and placed into a box.  The feminine qualities of her work are not aggressive or focused on a specific outcome, but instead portray strength, ambiguity, uninhibitedness, vulnerability, and fearlessness.  The fusion of Pipilotti’s bold, vivid, colorful personal aesthetic, her interest and continued exploration of videography, and her uninhibited representation of feminism creates a powerful, and inexorable body of works, that not only inspire, but provoke reflection of ones self, and societies response to femininity.  Her theories, concepts, and approach to her art production transcends filmmaking and visual art.  Through her transformative work, we are able to experience what Pipilotti Rist conveys through her many talents not only by seeing and hearing, but being physically present in the moment and space she creates.