“Bilder und Töne zusammensetzen, die meine eigenen Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse widerspiegeln - dem Zuschauer Freiräume zugestehen für eigene Assoziationen. Es entsteht keine erzählende (Film)Handlung, sondern ein Ausschnitt meiner erlebten Wirklichkeit, die den Betrachter befähigt, seine eigenen Geschichten mit der nun stattfindenden Monitorwirklichkeit in Einklang zu bringen.”
“Images and sounds put together that reflect my own experiences - allowing the viewers their own associations. No narrative (film) plot is created but an excerpt of my reality, which enables the viewer to reconcile his own stories with the occurring monitor reality.” —Werner Schmiedel, 1981

FIRE LANE

Photographer = Object

Der Baum - My Search for a Tree

GOLD - Variation

TRANCE:DANCE

"ohne innezuhalten in geradezu panischer konzentration nicht vergangenheit werden lassen"

THE BEACH

"Ich wollte eine gewisse Erwartung zeigen. Man sieht einen Strand und wartet - wartet, dass was passiert. Aber nichts geschieht wirklich. Einige Leute gehen zum Strand, einige verlassen ihn. Das Ganze ist in Surimpression und mit dem Originalton. Nach ca. einer Minute blendet das Bild ab, und das Video ist zu Ende."

TRANCE:MOTION

Motion: London, December 1996.
Passengers are riding an escalator in London's Underground.

Trance:fiction has the illusive quality of a moving painting. My video camera observes various people as they are walking by a red brick wall in downtown Manhattan. These images are slowed down to the extreme so that they almost appear to be still images.

ZEITSCHNITTE: 124/365

124 days / 124 Tage / moments of time / Augen-blicke

Spontan & Konkret - Künstler zur Lage der Nation
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien

"Advance of the binary world; schizophrenia of modern man; resurgence of faith in ancient philosophical techniques of handling aesthetic values and moral stances. Blurb-speak spring immediately to mind as you watch 'Stop and Go', in which Schmiedel films his move to New York from his own point of view. GO stands for a titled camera and fast intercutting of images, producing kaleidoscopic changes of colour. The sound is turned to fortissimo and attempts to reach crescendo. The proverb 'See Naples and die' is modernized to read 'See New York and die of exhaustion on the spot'.
STOP! At the weekend we escape from Manhattan and Coney Island and stand peacefully watching the barriers of some level crossing come down, stay down. Perhaps we hope they will sometime go up again. The choice seems clear to me." --ED, World Wide Video Festival 1986, The Hague, Netherlands

A video piece like a dance. Up and down. To and from. Again and again. Here and there. The Ele-Va-Tors as dancers. A rhythm choreographed like a performance. Slow and fast. Stop and go.

*Red Ribbon Winner (ART) - 1986 Columbus Video Festival, Ohio

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands

"Gold is a precious metal that as a substance sets a standard for transitory things like money. In the video triptych GOLD by Hannah Heer / Werner Schmiedel, things are reversed: the transitory becomes golden, the fleeting images of an island near Capri, the iconic appearance of Villa Malaparte, fragments of Renaissance painting surface and disappear again in a gold sheen that illuminates a dance, a dream, a myth." --Bert Rebhandl, Time Pieces. Video Art since 1963. n.b.k. Berlin (2013)

"Alchemy was out to convert ordinary base metal to gold and to create the elixir of life. Hannah Heer and Werner Schmiedel are repeating the alchemic processes but in a contemporary way. They color the sea gold and alternate these images with barely tangible words such as 'life', 'dream' and 'universe'. With Villa Come Me, on the celebrated fishing island of Capri, as a location, a moving painting is created with mythical overtones." --World Wide Video Festival 1984, The Hague, Netherlands

"Deriving impulses from Renaissance paintings Hannah Heer collaborated with Werner Schmiedel and produced the three part tape GOLD. Using subnarrative and associative means, GOLD presents the mythological search for gold in a rhythmic, dream-like homage to the wealth of fantasy. The video is marked throughout by a striking, fantastic application of the color gold." --Tafelspitz International

"...I find the tape mesmerizing." --Bob Riley, Curator, Video and Performance Art, ICA, Boston

*Permanent Collection of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein

Foto: © Katleen Arthen

In dem Video portraitiert Werner Schmiedel witzig und mit Ironie die Eröffnungsausstellung in der Möbel perdu & LUX Neonlicht Galerie in Hamburg im März 1983. (Interviewer: Gerald Uhlig)

"A diary is assumed to be a record of daily happenings, but it may well end up more as a record of events at night and then not so much the physical events but the dreams. Dreaming is after all a noctural phenomenon. Submerged with Esther Williams in a sea of love, is something to dream about with your brother. But even if you, in the guise of Flash Gordon, were to stay with the queen of the sea, then the monitors would still keep an eye on you. And anyway, where has your brother gone since he transferred his dreams to the daylight hours? Will he survive his hunger strike? A diary is not just personal in its contents but also handwriting. This production also has its own yellow/blue video signature."
--World Wide Video Festival 1983, The Hague, Netherlands

*Permanent Collection of Stichting Kijkhuis (The Hague), Netherlands

Videoarbeit für zwei Monitore und zwei Abspielmaschinen: der linke Monitor zeigt eine Kameraeinstellung vom Rhein, der rechte Monitor zeigt das zur gleichen Zeit aufgenommene ARD Fernsehprogramm am 29.7.81 von 17:45 - 20:45 Uhr.

"Die Registrierbarkeit des Augenblicks" - Super-8 trifft auf Video. Beides verlangsamt wie in einem Traum.

Die Reise-BEWEGUNG auf der einen Seite: Situationen und persönliche Begegnungen. Auf der anderen Seite: die BEWEGUNG des Filmmaterials.

18 people photograph themselves.
Eine Videokamera ist in einem Raum mit einem Monitor so installiert, dass der Betrachter sich selbst wie in einem Spiegel sehen kann. Die Person soll von sich selbst ein Photo machen. Der Vorgang bis zum Auslösen wird auf Video aufgezeichnet.

Keine Geschichten im üblichen Sinn, sondern dem Zuschauer Freiraum zugestehen für eigene Assoziationen.

Mein Auge ist die Kamera / The video camera is my eye.
November 1979. Walking. Gehen.
Homage to Richard Long and Hamish Fulton.

Autobahnfahrt von Düsseldorf nach Köln. Die Videokamera ist im Innern des Wagens zentriert montiert und dreht sich während der halbstündigen Fahrt einmal um 360 Grad.

I SEE