Floris Schönfeld

9 minute preview of the two channel video installation UMWELT

UMWELT ARTIS, looping 2-channel video, HD video, 38 minutes, 2023/24

The video installation UMWELT ARTIS is a cinematic portrait of zoo and knowledge institute ARTIS Amsterdam. The new work by artist Floris Schönfeld, in collaboration with cameraman John Treffer, gives a sense of the intimate interweaving of plants, humans, animals, and machines in ARTIS park.

From March 2023 through to November 2023, Schönfeld worked at ARTIS as ARTISt-in-residence. The ARTIS Park became his studio and research site. Together with cameraman John Treffer, he spent many days filming the animals and plants in ARTIS park. He was helped by many ARTIS animal caretakers and gardeners.

Schönfeld is interested in the perspectives of other living beings. He knows that he himself is limited by his own subjective view, yet he does not let that deter him. Instead, he explores our human ability to get close to the experiences of others. ARTIS is a place where countless perspectives converge and thus a very fitting place to further explore this theme.

'When you embrace that it's not just about humans, the world really becomes a different place where our interests are enmeshed with those of other beings. Especially in a time of climate change and mass extinction, it becomes increasingly important to learn to listen to these other voices.'

Schönfeld and Treffer came up with all kinds of ways to get close to the experience of other creatures. For example, they followed the growth of trees for months, filmed the animals up close, and built special cameras, which they used to let the animals film themselves. Schönfeld also trained visual algorithms to represent different animals from the perspective of a machine. The whole work results in a new, dizzying portrait of ARTIS.

UMWELT ARTIS is a project project by Floris Schönfeld in collaboration with John Treffer .

It was developed during the ARTISt-in-residence at ARTIS zoo Amsterdam in 2023-24 in collaboration with the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.

Concept, production en editing: Floris Schönfeld

Camera work, image post production en development of animal play objects: John Treffer

Curator: Judith de Bruijn

Development and training GAN algorithm: Miša Skalskis

Soundtrack en music composition: Ruben Samama

Project intern: Merel Schuurman

Projection by: Phanta Visuals

With many thanks to: Josephine Glazener, 
Emma Morse, Beatrice Puijk, Ton Hilhorst, Sjoerd van Kessel, Maartje de Vries, Iwo Nelson, Peter Bleesing, Job van Tol, Johan Lof, Lotte Ouwehand, Ivar van den Berge, Michael Kwakman, Lisa van Domburg, Miriam Schuurman, Sanne van der Mark, Hans van der Sluis , Mark van de Hoef, Teun van den Bergh, Iris Kuethe, Katy Koning, Mark Barrink, Sil Verhagen, Tamara Gijsen, Sanne van der Mark, Roos Castaing, Roy Rövekamp, Jan de Jong, Hans Bontenbal, Roy Zonneveld, Graham Bulstra, Roland Winter and all the other ARTIS employees that helped us during the project.

Thijs de Zeeuw and Maarten Reesink for the good company and interesting conversations.

Anne van Dijk, Rotem Kadan-Zilber en Julian Evans from the ARISE Project

Emma van Drongelen en Jacqueline Lamme from ARTIS-Ateliers

Hans Mulder en Erik Bastiaanse from UVA speciale collecties

Karl Klomp en Jozef Hey vvoor advice on the install

Berend Janssens from Canon Nederland

This work was made possible by a financial contribution from the

Mondriaan Fonds and 
Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst

View of the two-channel video UMWELT ARTIS

UMWELT ARTIS, looping 2-channel video, HD video, 38 minutes, 2023/24

foto by Roel Backaert

View of the two-channel video UMWELT ARTIS

UMWELT ARTIS, looping 2-channel video, HD video, 38 minutes, 2023/24

foto by Roel Backaert

View of the two-channel video UMWELT ARTIS

UMWELT ARTIS, looping 2-channel video, HD video, 38 minutes, 2023/24

foto by Roel Backaert

View of the two-channel video UMWELT ARTIS

UMWELT ARTIS, looping 2-channel video, HD video, 38 minutes, 2023/24

foto by Roel Backaert

foto by Roel Backaert

Thanks to the knowledge and help of animal caretakers at ARTIS, Floris Schönfeld and John Treffer developed objects that allowed the animals to film themselves whist playing. This enabled them to develop a unique visual language from an unusual perspective. Treffer made the objects in his studio, partly using wood from ARTIS. For the animals themselves, these objects were often an interesting temporary enrichment of their environment. The objects are on display in the showcases.

foto by Roel Backaert

For the Asian elephants, they made the Rattle: a block of wood with carrots sticking out and cookies hidden inside, which the elephants could take out with their trunks. They also placed the camera in a ball that the elephants played with.

For the California sea lions, they made the Tuna, a fish-shaped object that incorporated two cameras, and the Mackerel, a smaller object that the animals played with in the water.

For the Sulawesi crested macaques, Schönfeld and Treffer made a Selfiecam, with a semi-transparent mirror, which allowed the animals to observe themselves. The animals engaged with the camera with great enthusiasm; greeting and viewing themselves intently.

For the southern ground hornbill, they made a Selfiestick that the animals carried with their beaks. The stick of the first version turned out to be too short, so Treffer had to make a second version with a longer stick.

Exhibition overview of UMWLET artis with 2 channel video piece and vitrines.

foto by Roel Backaert

Exhibition overview of UMWELT ARTIS with 2 channel video piece and live generated video piece UMWELT ML.

foto by Roel Backaert

Exhibition overview of UMWLET ARTIS with wall text and live generated video UMWELT ML.

foto by Roel Backaert

5 minute fragment from the work UMWELT ML

UMWELT ML, live generated video and audio, 2024

GAN algorithm created in collaboration with artist Miša Skalskis with audio by Ruben Samama

Schönfeld also wanted to weave the impact of technology on ARTIS into UMWELT ARTIS. He did so by using so-called machine learning (ML) artificial intelligence (AI).

Schönfeld collected three different datasets, each of which, in its own way, gives a new perspective on ARTIS: a collection of children's drawings made during a drawing course at the ARTIS-Ateliers, imagery from the ARISE science project, and images from the Iconographia Zoologica (a 19th-century collection of zoological images in the ARTIS Library). Working together with artist and programmer Miša Skalskis they trained a series of GAN machine learning models that create ever-new images based on these datasets. These images, on view in UMWELT ARTIS, are generated live and evolve over time.

UMWELT ML, live generated video and audio, 2024

UMWELT ML, live generated video and audio, 2024

UMWELT ML, live generated video and audio, 2024