Cool Hunting

"Maelzel’s Raum" [on-time, still life II], by the German video artist Arnold von Wedemeyer, is the second in a series of three video explorations into the classical form of painting popularized in the 17th and 18th centuries. Exhibited by Galerie Anita Beckers at PULSE Miami 2008, the seven and a half minute video is a masterful treatment—the result of a computer generated environment being "photographed" over the duration of several weeks. Each frame (click above for expanded views) is highly detailed, and rendered in full high definition. The moving still life presents the viewer with a near imperceptible shift in the environs: a rose blossom eventually wilts, fruit decays and attracts flies, a chess game unfolds, all the while a metronome beats on the second.

The work is inspired by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, an inventor and constructor living at the beginning of the 19th century, who worked on creating illusions by means of technology (he was also considered the inventor of the portable metronome). In creating this near lifelike representation through computer renderings, von Wedemeyer serves up his own illusion while injecting the still life with new relevance.