TULIPOMANIA / EVERQUEST 2007 3-Channel Digital Video 8:00min

Tulipomania / EverQuest explores how we impart value to ephemeral things by juxtaposing the sensations of 17th century Tulipomania and the spirit of the contemporary videogame EverQuest, within a graphically animated video. 3 videos compose the project, "Turk Tulipo", "PA-Dutch Tulipo", and "Neth Tulipo", which portray independent scavenger hunts—tracing the presence and symbolism of the tulip motif within three distinct locations and cultures. Synched in timing and playback: when all three videos display the same animated tulip sequence, a 3-of-a-kind / jackpot "game response" is activated, presenting tulip flowers blowing in the breeze to bombastic music.

Audio, Video, and Adventure: Jennifer Schmidt

PSYCHEDELIC SWATCH 2007 Digital Video 2:06min

While at Elsewhere Artist Collaborative in Greensboro, NC, I wandered through a collection of fabric patterns-- swatches of material on furniture, dolls, clothes, bags, sheets and curtains-- folded on shelves and rolled along the walls. The collection becoming in essence something else: a stylistic portrait of a particular genre, defined by the visual patterns present (their designs and colors spanning 1960-1987).

Psychedelic Swatch is a play on the idea of psychedelia and the generalized notion of what it represents.

By layering 15 audio recordings that were recorded within Elsewhere, I was able to respond to the visuals of psychedelia within the video-- producing a stereo mix that's stylistically acid rock. Dense with tracks, the audio creates a hypnotic groove of feedback.

Photography and Animation: Jennifer Schmidt
Audio by Jennifer Schmidt

i firefly 2007 Digital Video 4:35min

Videography: Jennifer Schmidt

ELSEWHERE 2007 Digital Video 0:38sec

Greetings from Elsewhere: as seen and experienced within one space and one time. A collective illustration of transitory objects and images framed by media and popular belief. (printed: labels, packaging, records, paintings, drawings, and photographs; some crafts)

Photography and Animation: Jennifer Schmidt

HAWAIIAN SUNSET 2006 Digital Video (excerpt) 31:00min

A hawaiian car seat "sets with the sun" during an afternoon drive in Brooklyn, New York. No special effects or transitions.

The printed image of a hawaiian sunset on the fabric of a car seat appears to "set with the sun", creating a temporal atmosphere of terra incognita, as light is reflected on its surface. (The video is to be projected)

Driving and Videography: Jennifer Schmidt

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN 2006 Digital Video (excerpt) 48:00min

Videography: Jennifer Schmidt

HYMN 2006 Digital Video 3:00min

With Hymn the printer as object becomes a theater for humanistic projection. Information is transcribed and translated through the device to differentiate a printed image, accompanied by a phonetic score of its own making—an operatic hymn of hums, bleeps, and drones, which mediate and pronounce the "event of reproduction" an existential act of prayer and insistence.

Videography: Jennifer Schmidt

QPON 2006 Digital Video 2:25min

Once upon a time... an acoustic clipping, of scissors snipping, their way along a coupon dash.

Designs: Jennifer Schmidt
Animation and Videography: Jennifer Schmidt
Audio by Jennifer Schmidt

WATERLOGGED 2005 Digital Video 3:00min

Channeling the route by which content follows, Waterlogged is the interception of a sequence of vignettes, transmitted between source and a receiver. Graphic impressionism establishes meaning through a loose symbolic and linguistic connection with other frames and scenes. Flicking channels on and off, a current flows, and resistors a statically charged log of saturated emot(ion) plus icon.

"If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Paper-Cut Designs: Jennifer Schmidt
Animation and Videography: Jennifer Schmidt
Audio by L.Contra

LETTERS IN A COMA 2004 Digital Video 5:25min > Project Notes

An empathetic response to trauma, Letters in a Coma is a video animation of solitary tic tac toe drawings, played by Jennifer Schmidt while experiencing a loved one in a coma. Through the process of playing the child-like game over and over and making simple decisions framed by a known outcome, the artist attempts to transfer and translate personal feelings of loss and remission onto a projected medium using graphic symbolism as a means to aesthetically and conceptually reference the color coded computer interface of an Intensive Care Unit vital signs monitor.

The x's and o's, lined with pink and yellow highlighter, shift and fade to the rhythm of a respirator. Like a sampler stitch, they methodically record sentiments and thoughts with care-- on a white sheet, while two folk motif birds look-on as fixed, unmoving observers.

Solitaire Tic Tac Toe: played and highlighted by Jennifer Schmidt
Video Animation of Tic Tac Toe Drawings: Jennifer Schmidt
Audio by L.Contra
For Mandy

SCAN-TRON 2003 Digital Video 1:30min

Referencing the recording and reading of responses embedded within a series of fabricated standardized test sheets, the techno pop graphics of Scan-Tron become mentally charged with viable questions and patterns of decision-making. During the months of November, December, and January 2003, Jennifer Schmidt responded to a series of test forms-- filling in answers with a #2 pencil-- according to a given set of rules and unknown objectives.

Scantron Tests: designed and offset printed by Jennifer Schmidt
Video Animation of Scantron Tests: Jennifer Schmidt
Sound co-produced by L.Contra

WHAT'S IN A NAME? 2001 Digital Video 36sec advertisement

Working in response to commercial advertising and the prevalent use of logos, trademarks, and other recognizable symbols to define a particular product, service or identity, What’s in a Name? addresses the ambiguous nature of sir names, their history, and role as personal branding.

Questions of authorship and identity are evoked in the singing and recollection of the American folk song / jingle "John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt"--- a song of unknown provenance and meaning, often sung by children during play, singularly and in rounds.....the lyrics linger in the viewer’s audible memory, to be repeated silently or aloud— as an echo of a learned tradition, promoted in the present day.

Sound co-produced by L.Contra

SPANGLED 2001 Digital Video 15min

SPANGLED: the bright and glittery ornament references current broadcast news and American history. The footage was recorded on the 4th of July. I was very interested in drawing attention to the event itself- the tradition of the firework display. By juxtaposing the date of the war of 1812 with recent footage, I am linking the present with the "Star Spangled Banner" of the past.

WAVE POOL 2001 Digital Video 2:33min

Durational Drawing, Installation, and Digital Video: Installation of repeat wave drawings on blue post-it notes within an architectural space. The drawings become animated and move with the wind of oscillating fans- in an ephemeral environment, where the location and context is unknown and temperamental.

Videography by Jordan Wolfson