30. NOV., SA. 17:00
1. DEZ., SO. 17:00
The video installation brings together a sculptural intervention and the film Flint House Lizard (2019) shown in its premiere screening. The body and the corporeal are the focal points of Ani Schulze’s new surreal and unsettling work, moving within fable, fiction, reality and speculation. Through hypnotic sequences of changing textures, atmospheres, figures, landscapes and distinctive soundscapes, the film unfolds non-linear fragments of a whimsical tale. A mood or a state of mind is provoked that floats between sleep and alertness.
Flint House Lizard navigates through four different cycles that seem to be oriented towards the sun. The film begins in the darkness and departs from a single body or figure. Embedded in the interior of a darkened, obscure garden we experience this body as something introverted and we dive into the inner life of its physical self. As the sun light increases, this inside perspective slowly moves into an “outside”. The single figure melts within a group of bodies, their dynamics mingling around with the ambition of unity, speculation, and myth-making. These bodies are literally pressed against pictures, images and sounds. The densely layered narrative of Flint House Lizard in itself reveals patterns of a storytelling influenced by speculation and belief making. Seducing, haptic detail-shots grow further into a disturbing, grim-sequence of images and a short choreography of computer-generated pictures. Partly created with a mass-simulation software, this animated sequence reflects on the striking easiness to simulate movements of crowds with algorithms.
The work attempts to highlight how contemporary social patterns of mass images and information structures simulate and determine the single body and influence movements of groups and masses. Flint House Lizard leans on the ideas of the Soviet biophysicist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964). His approach combined sunspots, solar flares and the eleven-year solar cycle with political and social developments such as populist mass movements.
Ani Schulze (*1982 in Germany) studied at Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Glasgow School of Arts, at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and Kunstakademie Karlsruhe. Her works have been shown in various solo and group shows, amongst others at Frankfurter Kunsthalle Schirn, Kurzfilmfestival Oberhausen, Kölnischer Kunstverein and Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. The artist’s interdisciplinary practice addresses the control, fantasy and politics of landscape and space as well as their relationships to the human body. Schulze’s multi-layered works are interweaving sculptures, drawings and video into complex installations. Playfully creating non-linear and surreal narratives, these asymmetric visual structures superimpose future, past and states of being.
Ani Schulze is the current artist in residence at I: project space in collaboration with Goethe-Institut China.
Ani Schulze, 4K video, with sound, 15 min. (2019)
Film Credits:
Performer: Manuel Granja, Vera Mota, Anja Müller, Bernardo Rodrigues
Voice: Clare Molloy
Producer/ Postproduction: Patrick Alan Banfield
Cinematography/ Animation: Nicolas C. Geissler
Sound and Music: Filip Caranica / Contemporary Sound
The production of the film and the installation are supported by innogy Stiftung, Essen as part of the VISIT Fellowship.
I: project space
10 Banqiao Hutong 板桥胡同甲10号
10000 Peking