Stratum
2023, HD video
16:9, color, sound
11:41 min
The video serves as a prelude to a new series of works dealing with layers from an archeological and neuroscientific perspective. It is an audiovisual collage of sourced footage and first film material that Schmelzer has collected in the research process.
How is the human presence engraved in different landscapes? What traces does the Anthropocene leave on the surface of
our planet? What becomes a memory that is imprinted on our brain structure? How does the structure of human information
storage differ from that of a microchip and computational organizing structures?
The video touches on different levels of an archeology of the future, disrupting linear and episodic narratives of post- multiverse environments.
LITHAL
2022, 2-channel video installation
16:9 / 9:16, color, sound
4:25 min/ 1:24 Min
Seemingly pristine natural landscapes meet amorphous forms of liquid lithium and its mining areas. Scenes of a badminton practice lead into thoughts about energy, geology, and competitive mentality, interwoven in the spell of an uncertain future.
The two-channel video work addresses the future of mining and resource extraction for a technology-based age after the emergence of the Anthropocene.
Domestication
2023, HD video
16:9, color, sound
11:23min
The video essay highlights current cancer research and treatment from a future perspective. Various aspects such as genetics, imaging, and archiving, documented at the National Center for Tumor Diseases Dresden (NCT), and the biobank of the University Hospital Dresden, meet bio-chemical macro shots as well as sourced footage, which encircle the phenomenon of cancer as a living target on an abstract level. The video is part of the work-in-residence and exhibition project "Kunst & Krebs" at the NCT/UCC Dresden.
Commissioned by Kustodie, TUD Dresden University of Technology Cooperation partner: National Center for Tumor Diseases Dresden (NCT/UCC), Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections (Kustodie) at TUD, Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK Dresden)
Courtesy: Kustodie, TUD Dresden University of Technology.
Stardust
2022, single-channel video
16:9, color, sound 5:19 min
The video essay contains a fictional perspective about the human body from a retrofuturistic point of view. Have we already arrived in posthuman civilization, or are we living in a fever dream about our own mortality? Representations of microorganisms and meditative chemical reactions confront the practice of epithetic and question the image of the human at the intersection of art, digital technology, and craftsmanship.
All Stories Untold
2022, HD video
16:9, color, sound
5:58 min
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon of collective false memory of facts or events. The death of Nelson Mandela in 2013 was the eponymous event for the effect. The video questions forms of collective memory and dimensions of reality in light of the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). Did the events in the mass accelerator there shift the space-time continuum, dissolving the boundary between realities? Does the Mandela effect provide evidence for alternative realities and what does it say about our collective memory?
In the work, real events are reconstructed and meet speculative fragments, popular aesthetics, and digital animations.