Models Eugenia von Hannover @eugeniaha Julia Strege @julia.strege Victor Donatz @victordonatz
Film by Jaron Kühmstedt @jaronjohannes
Art Director Jo Kühmstedt @j4studio
Photographer Stephan Ziehen @stephanziehen
Styling Carlo di Dio @carlitotheshrimp Anna Kühmstedt @annakuehmstedt
Hair+Make-Up Nadine Hochwieser @nadine.hochwieser
Thanks to Judith Vischer and Grün Berlin for the kind support at the Tempelhofer Feld/Berlin (gruen-berlin.de) and 711 Rent for the camera and equipment @711rent
This film is based on four previous individual works that dealt with topics concerning the relationship between the artist and the city and where or how to find oneself in it. While three of the four works are directly situated in the city, the very first work has its focus on nature, mainly water and skies.
By combining both aspects in this fifth work, the work is trying to recreate the juxtaposition between city, the man-made social-concrete-organism, and nature while introducing recurrence and repetition to it. By doing this the work is trying to reflect on the never-ending working of the city, commuting, traveling, seeing the same sights over and over again. While this notion of recurrence and repetition happens in nature as well with seasons, growth, decomposition etc., it stays independent of the city’s rhythm, closely connecting but never merging them.
Cities, despite their promise of providing collective living space, have a quality of fear inducing hostility for people not belonging to its organism. Disorientation and insecurity can be felt wandering through the concrete canyons of the unknown city, waiting to be absorbed into its pulsating heart that is the people inhabiting it. This fever-dream like feeling of drifting and unease of meeting a new, still unknown home is what the film tries to depict.
“The mouth is so full that one can no longer swallow.”
…this is how the Hamburg-based artist Tronje Thole van Ellen described the Now before the pandemic. The feeling of being able to do everything and therefore having to do everything grew into an overwhelming ulcer of possibilities, which now meets upon a virus. Despite all odds and fears, the artist decides to create space for art and still exhibit his works. The documentation accompanies the construction of an inexperienced, aspiring debutante who is realizing the only exhibition in the renowned Barlach Halle K in Hamburg in 2020.
Jaron KUEHMSTEDT Lok Tung KWAN Tate Hiu Yin TSE Aster Shuxin WANG Yan
Sound Recoding
Hiu Yin TSE Aster Shuxin WANG Yan
Sound Design
Lok Tung KWAN Tate Shuxin WANG Yan
Editing
Shuxin WANG Yan
Advisor
Max HATTLER
When looked at closely, the urban environment of the city that surrounds us every day turns into an abstract place as it is removed from its public and functional context. In this short animation, urban shapes, colors, textures, and ordinary objects become recontextualized in a composition of abstract visuals and sounds. The chaos of the city is the central theme the animation is built upon. New patterns and visual connections are found in ordinary and usually invisible elements we pass on a daily basis. The aim is to provide a new look at the city and the urban environment and open up a fresh and playful perspective on the way the urban space can be perceived. This different kind of seeing allows for reimagination and rediscovery of the city as if seeing it for the first time again. The soundtrack consisting of a mix of location and optical sound translates this element of abstraction and rediscovery to the audible level. A combination of After Effects, Procreate, and Stop Motion Studio were used to create this animation frame by frame.
This short documentary was conceived during the two weeks of compulsory quarantine upon entering Hong Kong in early 2022. It quietly reflects on the confinement and bureaucratic backdrop that was the city’s attempt at controlling the uncontrollable. This film puts its emphasis on the individual, the singular entity that is myself – forcibly disconnected but inevitably bound to everyone else.
Sounds turn into abstract images. This black and white abstract animation aims to visualize the underlying music track, enhancing it by adding a visual layer to the acoustic. A combination of mixed media materials and hand and digital drawing and animation are used to create a tightly connected audiovisual experience.
The elements of the animation are simplified and reduced to ordinary shapes and textures. Lines, dots, squares, and more fluid and undefined shapes make up the main elements of the boiling animation. The visual reduction, including removal of colors, is used to gain focus and tightly match the animation to the sound. Having the animation boil enables a more handcrafted approach to the animation through it’s less fluid and rougher appearance, as well as the visual incorporation of the music’s lively nature.
A combination of After Effects, Procreate, and Photoshop were used to create this animation frame by frame.
Festival Screenings
Punto y Raya – Abstract Art in Motion Film Festival – Portugal
London International Animation Film Festival – London, UK
Flatpack Film Festival – Birmingham, UK
ISCA International Student Creative Award – Osaka, Japan
