WTF

Collaged Video
Mini-DV, Voice Recordings, Physical Stills
2’ min
2023

Emelie Schulze’s work WTF is an autobiographical video work created through a collage of multi-media elements. Through this work Schulze is expressing abstract feelings of confusion and uncertainty. She tells her story through rhythm rather than linear narrative making WTF immediately disorientating. The viewer is immersed in a multi layered narrative, created through fractions of video and corresponding images, which evoke a tangible feeling.

The fractalesque way Schulze plays with the content of the work within itself has echoes of Camille Henrot’s artwork Gross Fatigue. This makes us question the connection between reality and our perception of it. She is pulling the viewer close into her world of feelings, creating suspense and a sense of not wanting the video to end.

Furthermore, an important aspect: WTF’s soundtrack operates almost as a separate layer, made up of disconnected and layered fragments of audio acting as punctuation to the unfolding images. Hereby, creating a beat which leads the audience through the video.

It is clear that WTF is a work about Schulze, a reflection of her state of mind and of being. Her starting point created by situating her practice within ways to explore everyday banality, but as her works develops in combination with sources of audio and combination of media – the final result is frenetic and quickly becomes overwhelming.

Schulze prints stills and integrates them back into the video, and her interaction with these becomes the key message of the work. Moving in between ripped and crumpled prints of stills to intact and untouched ones, she is metaphorically playing on the cycle of life. This reveals a heightened visibility of her surroundings and what emerges is the artist’s self-reflection.