The Audio Foundation is delighted and excited to host Christopher Schmelz as an artist in residence in the weeks leading up to the opening of the Cross Modal exhibition.

During his residency, Chris will also continue his exploration of experimental filmmaking, specifically with hand processing expired 16mm films, generating sonic and film material in and from the Audio Foundation building and its surroundings. This material, along with the projectors themselves, will provide both the visual and sonic elements for an audiovisual, site specific film installation as part of Cross Modal.

Christopher Schmelz is an interdisciplinary artist from Koputai/Port Chalmers, Ōtepoti/Dunedin, predominantly working with analog film and sound. Chris has performed nationally and internationally as part of the long-running experimental film/expanded cinema group, Rubbish Film Unit, and in collaboration with a number of other artists and musicians. His work embraces visual aesthetics usually associated with lack of film care, technical mistakes or mechanical malfunction, utilizing found, forgotten, and hand processed celluloid film.

Recent projects/collaborations include Caffenol Cafe 1: RDC Espresso (2021); Wet Specimen, The Dirt (music video, 2021); Ben Woods, Body Rhyme (music video, 2020); ‘Skeletons In The Closet – 35 Years of NOM*D’ (2020); William Henry Meung, Down The Street Slowly (music video, 2019); Death and The Maiden, Mercury (music video, 2018); L$D Fundraiser, Witness Disco Excerpt 1 (music video, 2018).

Chris also is an active musician performing with several Ōtepoti/Dunedin bands; Wet Specimen, Guardians, Wolfskull, TPO8, Whiskey and The Wench.