I am interested in the latest media developments (including computer-based animations) on the one hand and historical material (e.g. decaying photographs or films) on the other.
For several years I have been collecting, digitising and re-animating Animated Found Footage – 35 mm film loops for Laterna Magicas from around 1900. This is increasingly done in cooperation with film archives and museums across Europe.
The condition of the films is often very poor, the films are torn, glued, stitched, brittle, scratched, dusty. Sometimes there are only fragments. They are animations and live-action films, produced and duplicated in different processes at the time.
So far, they have not appeared in film history because they are decaying and cannot be shown in film apparatuses and have also been classified as children’s toys.
The films reflect the present with their timeless animation style. The past becomes visible in image details, but also through scuffs, scratches and missing parts.
Through the deliberate use of image interference, I discover content that has disappeared and make it perceptible to the viewer in a new, contemporary way. Between media archaeology and computer animation, I try to develop my own approach in which documentation and construction interpenetrate sensually.
For SCHNEESTAUB I showed the material to the author Kathrin Schmidt and asked her to write a poem on the subject of ageing and transience. This is how the poem “Pattern, rutsching” came about, which I handwrite into the images in the film.