Steff Gruber

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Steff Gruber

Steff Gruber (born April 3, 1953 in Zurich ) is a Swiss filmmaker , photographer , author , entrepreneur and telecommunications and internet pioneer.

Life

Steff Gruber was born the son of the painter Hannes Gruber and Annemarie Gruber-Vogelsanger and grew up in Oberrieden on Lake Zurich . At that time it was his greatest wish to become a pilot and inventor. After building his first radio receiver at the age of eight, at the age of fifteen, during the first manned flight to the moon, he managed to listen to the dialogue between the astronauts and the ground station. However, he broke off the training he had begun as an electronics technician early after he had decided to become a filmmaker.

To this day, Steff Gruber has not committed himself to one profession, rather he combines different professional identities, such as artists, technicians and entrepreneurs. He has not given up flying, his great passion, either: As a pilot, he makes sightseeing flights in the Swiss Alps and taxi or private flights within Europe and North Africa .

Movie

After and during his time at the Juventus high school in Zurich , from 1972 Steff Gruber attended film lectures and film courses with Martin Schlappner , Viktor Sidler , Georg Radanowicz and Sebastian C. Schröder at the University of Zurich , the ETH Zurich and the F + F School for Design (Zurich ). During his two-year studies at the School of Design, he studied with Doris Stauffer , Serge Stauffer , Hansjörg Mattmüller and Peter Jenny. He also worked as an advertising photographer and filmmaker. In the 1970s, Steff Gruber was one of the first filmmakers to deal with the docudrama genre . In 1974 he studied Mass Media Philosophy for a year at the University of Georgia , where he met the painter and filmmaker James Herbert . The friendship left a lasting mark on Gruber and continues to influence his work to this day.

In 1976, he shot his first feature film in Georgia , the docudrama Moon in Taurus , which was completed in 1980. The film deals thematically with codes within two-way relationships and the question of why relationships diverge. The first version contained conversations with Cindy Wilson The B-52s and Silver Thin from Andy Warhol's The Factory , but these did not appear in the final version. Especially due to the unusual formal implementation of the film, it attracted international attention. By selecting from 15 hours of documentary film material, a film was created that linked fiction and documentation in a new way. The film was selected for the Mannheim Film Festival competition.

Back in Switzerland, Gruber was briefly assistant to the American painter Sam Francis (with whom he was working on a film about CG Jung ). As a cameraman he worked for the artist Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch and the filmmaker Erich Langjahr .

In 1982, Gruber's second feature film, Fetish & Dreams , was also made in the USA . The film, shot in New York, is the thematic and formal continuation of the previous film. In terms of technology, too, Gruber broke new ground with Fetish & Dreams . Using a process developed in-house, the electronically video-rotated film was then copied to 35mm, making it the first video transfer in Swiss cinemas. Fetish & Dreams premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1985 and won the award for creative originality in dealing with documentary and feature film elements. The film was shown at various film festivals around the world. During the filming, Steff Gruber met the German filmmaker Werner Herzog through his cameraman Rainer Klausmann . In 1987 he invited him to accompany the shooting of his film Cobra Verde in Ghana . This is where the film Location Africa was made , which documents the last collaboration between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski .

Between 1991 and 1995 Steff Gruber worked on his next film, in which he wanted to examine the erotic code in interpersonal relationships. However, after having filmed more than 120 hours of material on the subject, he saw the subject overtaken by the media landscape and therefore stopped working on the film. In 2006 Secret Moments was finished after all. The film, which was created solely from the original film material, is also a reflection of the film project at the time. Between 2005 and 2011 Gruber made the documentary Passion Despair in Moldova with Jürg Hassler as cameraman . The film premiered at the Danzig DocFilm Festival in 2011. Gruber's latest film Fire Fire Desire is set in Southeast Asia and tells the story of an odyssey that is inspired by Joseph Conrad's story Heart of Darkness (1899).

As an auteur filmmaker, Steff Gruber worked on all of his films for several years. Not only because he took on almost all the tasks himself, including the film poster, but because he also carried out other projects. In addition, Gruber taught at various schools and universities, such as from 1994 to 1997 as a lecturer for film and electronic media at the University of Konstanz .

photography

Gruber has been working intensively on photography since 1970. During his time at the F + F School of Design, he not only worked as a filmmaker, but also as a press photographer for Keystone Press . In 1977 Gruber researched new photographic processes that were supposed to fuse the positive slide with the instant image. He called this diatype . With his art projects SEXTOX.COM and webdesire.com, Gruber examined the Internet for sex images in the 1990s, mostly with so-called bots, i.e. fully automated, which then became the subject of his art installations in a different form.

Out of his documentary interest, Gruber began to photograph reportages in different countries in which human issues and humanistic concerns are in the foreground. Many of his photo series are created over a period of several years in which he visits places and people several times. One of his long-term reports includes the series about the floating villages on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia.

As a publisher, Steff Gruber founded the independent non-commercial magazine TOX, which sees itself in an open format as a platform for photography and other artistic disciplines. The first issue of the magazine was dedicated to the Swiss artist and filmmaker Jürg Hassler , with a focus on the photographic work that was mainly created during his time as a reportage photographer in Switzerland, France and Italy in the 1960s.

During the corona pandemic crisis, Gruber founded Lumiere.Gallery in April 2020, which aims to offer photographers a platform through digital photo exhibitions.

Internet

Steff Gruber was a hacker from the very beginning. The Internet pioneer surfed through cyberspace when it still consisted of government, military and university computers. With his association "Cultnet", founded in 1980 for like-minded network freaks, he created the very first Internet service provider in Switzerland (ISP). The first “Public Internet Dialup” Cultnet.uucp (later cultnet.com and cult.net) was initially a free service for registered users. With the association CULTNET eV Communication Society for Art & Science, for example, a communication medium for filmmakers was to be established in the form of a culture database. The success of the digital offer was not at that time. Gruber was almost the only beneficiary of his Internet access for ten years. The Cultnet differed in its financing and intent from the following Internet providers. It was not for profit and at times relied on sponsors. In 1989 the company NETLINK AG was founded. However, the required venture capital could not be raised because none of the potential donors believed in the vision of a global Internet. In 1991, 180 people used the Cultnet to exchange ideas and information. With his company Pixxel.com, Steff Gruber also created so-called Internet identities with the help of the design of domains with memorable names and also offered services. In 1995, for example, the first Swiss search engine was launched with web.ch. Gruber created and sold internet names such as MICROMANIA.COM and LOVEIT.COM. He came into the media in 2000 with the sale of another domain. When the software giant Microsoft named its new game console Xbox , it was not aware that the Internet name XBOX.COM had been occupied by Steff Gruber for years. Steff Gruber has realized many projects with the sale of Internet domains.

Gruber's preoccupation with the Internet extends to artistic projects, such as the multimedia installation webdesire.com/project02 , which was first launched in 2001 in the Yellow House in Flims on the occasion of the exhibition Die Schaukel. An exhibition on erotic was shown.

High frequency technology

Today, Steff Gruber pursues his former hobby as a radio amateur with great passion. He operates a shortwave radio station under the callsign HB9FXL, which also serves as a laboratory for experiments and experiments. He founded the WaveFactory association with like-minded people. The interdisciplinary association aims to research the ionosphere and develop new antenna forms and serves as an interface between high-tech, art and science. Expeditions, like 2016 to Cambodia, where Gruber also operates a shortwave test transmitter under the call sign XU7AKB, are a sign that Gruber is tirelessly looking for new experiences and knowledge.

Since 2016 he has also published in the magazine for amateur radio HBradio , where he regularly writes in the "Newcomer" series.

Companies

Steff Gruber founded his first company, Steff Gruber Enterprises, as early as 1973. As a graphic artist, filmmaker and technician, he realized his first author films, TV commercials, industrial films and designed posters and advertisements.

In 1976, Gruber and René Grossenbacher founded ALIVE Productions GmbH, today's culture advertising company ALIVE Media AG. The company that he still manages today is the leading distribution company for cultural advertising in Zurich. Since 2004, the company has also been a partner in the Central Swiss market leader Modul AG in Lucerne.

In 1995 the EBS Erotic Book Store was founded in Zurich. The store was the first adult bookstore in Europe to sell everything from educational books and non-fiction to fiction and illustrated books. It existed for ten years and received a great response in the media. In 1998, Gruber and auctioneer Peter Simon opened the gallery PAGE, Prints and Graphic Editions, a forum for original graphics in Zurich.

Today Steff Gruber is managing director of ALIVE Media AG, the film production company KINO.NET AG , the internet company media.ch AG, board member of the cultural advertising company Modul AG and president of WaveFactory.

Filmography

  • 1972: Portrait (short film, 16mm, b / w, 12 min.)
  • 1973: Tourist Information (short film, 16mm, b / w, 14 min.)
  • 1980: Moon in Taurus (film, 35mm, color, 97 min.)
  • 1984: Where Men Have to Appear (1 inch video, 4 min.)
  • 1985: Fetish & Dreams (feature film, 35mm, color, 82 min.)
  • 1987: Location Africa (documentary, 16mm, color, 65 min.)
  • 2006: Secret Moments (docudrama, DigiBeta, color & b / w, 82 min.)
  • 2011: Passion Despair (documentary film, DigiBeta, color & b / w, 95 min.)
  • 2017: Fire Fire Desire (feature film, DCP, color & b / w, 125 min.)

Awards

Publications

  • Steff Gruber (Ed.): TOX. Jürg Hassler , media.ch, Zurich 2013. ISBN 978-3-9523784-0-3 .
  • Steff Gruber: Location Africa: Conversations with Werner Herzog von Steff Gruber. In: Werner Herzog Cobra Verde - Filmbuch , published by Edition Stemmle, Schaffhausen 1987, pp. 113-137, ISBN 3-7231-0375-8 .
  • Steff Gruber: Who is Steff Gruber HE9GRQ (May 1967) ?. In: HBradio. Swiss Radio Amateurs, 6/2015, pp. 51–55. ISSN  1662-369X
  • Steff Gruber: Newcomer I. In: HBradio. Swiss Radio Amateurs, 2/2016, pp. 51–55. ISSN  1662-369X
  • Steff Gruber: Newcomer II. In: HBradio. Swiss Radio Amateurs, 3/2016, pp. 49–51. ISSN  1662-369X
  • Steff Gruber: Newcomer III : Propagation - an introduction, in: HB radio. Swiss Radio Amateurs, 6/2016, pp. 43–49. ISSN  1662-369X

Literature / article

  • The free radical. In: Das Magazin (Tages-Anzeiger), April 15, 2017. https://www.dasmagazin.ch/2017/04/15/der-frei-raduellen/
  • Moon in Taurus. In: Cinémathéque suisse (ed.), Histoire du cinéma suisse 1966-2000 , Tome 1, Lausanne 2007. p. 383. ISBN 2-88256-178-4
  • Fetish & Dreams. In: Cinémathéque suisse (ed.), Histoire du cinéma suisse 1966-2000 , Tome 1, Lausanne 2007, p. 594. ISBN 2-88256-178-4
  • Location Africa. In: Cinémathéque suisse (ed.), Histoire du cinéma suisse 1966-2000 , Tome 1, Lausanne 2007, p. 708. ISBN 2-88256-178-4
  • Presser, Beat (Ed.), Werner Herzog , Berlin 2002, pp. 76-85. ISBN 3-936314-31-4
  • Steff Gruber. Secret Moments. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1995 , Zurich 1995, p. 34.
  • Gruber Steff: Photo. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1986, Zurich 1986, p. 128.
  • Badran, Jacqueline, Fetish & Dreams. In: Filmstelle VSETH / VSU (ed.), Impossible Love Stories , Zurich 1986, pp. 189–194.
  • Fetish & Dreams. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1985 , Zurich 1985, p. 22f.
  • Steff Gruber: Fetish & Dreams. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1984 , Zurich 1984, p. 24.
  • FILMPOOL of the Swiss Film Center (Ed.), Film Off. Distribution catalog 1983/84 , Zurich 1983.
  • Martin Schaub: It's a man's business. In: CINEMA (ed.), The own affairs. Topics, motifs, obsessions and dreams of the new Swiss film 1963-1983 , Zurich 1983, p. 78.
  • Steff Gruber: Fetish and Dream. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1982 , Zurich 1982, p. 107.
  • Steff Gruber: Smara. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1981 , Zurich 1981, p. 117.
  • Corinne Schelbert: From one who went out to find out the causes. An erratic journey through Steff Gruber's film "Moon in Taurus". In: CINEMA (ed.), Recourse. New Swiss films . No. 1/81, pp. 26-33.
  • Moon in Taurus. In: XXIX. International Film Week Mannheim 1980. Documents - Reports - Comments 1980 , pp. 37, 110, 123, 210, 280, 315, 347, 383.
  • Portrait. Steff Gruber. In: Film-Pool des Schweizerisches Filmzentrum (Ed.), Film CH. Distribution catalog , Zurich 1980, p. 50.
  • Tourist information. Steff Gruber. In: Film-Pool des Schweizerisches Filmzentrum (Ed.), Film CH. Distribution catalog , Zurich 1980, p. 50.
  • Steff Gruber: Shady Grove, Triumph of the Wolves. In: Foundation Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Films. 1979 , Zurich 1979, p. 42f.
  • Steff Gruber. Portrait. In: Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Film Catalog , Zurich 1974, o. P.
  • Steff Gruber. Tourist information. In: Swiss Film Center (ed.), Swiss Film Catalog , Zurich 1974, o. P.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cindy Wilson in the casting for Moon in Taurus on youtube
  2. ↑ World Wide Web - a “Swiss” invention. In: Online PC newspaper. No. 6, 2000.
  3. ↑ Bruno Amstutz: Head of the Week. Steff Gruber: The internet pioneer did a great deal with Bill Gates. In: WerbeWoche. March 23, 2000, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Peter Exinger:, Under the Rock. Exhibition “The Swing” in the yellow house in Flims. In: SonntagsBlick . June 24, 2001.
  5. ↑ www.qrz.com/db/HB9FXL
  6. ↑ www.qrz.com/db/XU7AKB
  7. ↑ Sascha Buchbinder: Steff Gruber - five million culture posters for Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 10/11 August 1996.
  8. ↑ www.modul.ch
  9. ↑ Lilian Räber: "And Lady Di is there too": The Erotic Book Store. In: The weekly newspaper. (WOZ), No. 41, October 10, 1997.
  10. ↑ Brief portrait of the Erotic Book Store ( SRF ) on youtube
  11. ↑ A forum for original graphics. The new Zurich gallery page. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. December 3, 1998.
  12. ↑ Where men have to appear on youtube
personal data
SURNAME Gruber, Steff
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss filmmaker, photographer and author
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich