Internationally renowned artist and filmmaker Mario Pfeifer has been nominated for the Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden 2025. From among 77 top-class applications from artists from 38 countries, the selection committee chose Pfeifer, whose socio-political film installations have been shown in highly acclaimed national and international exhibitions. The artist has also received prestigious awards and scholarships—most recently, in December 2024, the German Human Rights Film Award in Nuremberg.

Between April and September 2025, Mario Pfeifer will conduct artistic research at Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden at TUD Dresden University of Technology on the main theme of the second funding phase “Data Worlds. Socio-technical and Cultural Syntheses of New Realities.“ With his film project, “Beyond the Binaries,” Mario Pfeifer plans to develop an AI-driven, dynamic video installation that focuses on the complex relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI). The focus is on the question of how data create realities of their own and how, conversely, reality is constantly transformed by data.

“In my works I am particularly concerned with social fractures, which are equally reflected in technological developments. We live in an increasingly data-driven world. (Self-)optimization and the pursuit of perfection play a crucial role here. In cooperation with scientists from TUD, I would like to conduct research at Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden on the relationship between humanity, AI and data worlds. I am particularly interested in how dynamic data and information can create constantly changing narratives in a cinematic work.” (Mario Pfeifer, 2025).

Mario Pfeifer (born in Dresden in 1981, lives and works in Berlin and Dresden) is a visual artist and filmmaker. In his work, he deals with current discourses and social disruptions, placing at the center of his work the understanding of democracy, racism, technology, and artistic research with regard to socio-political, ecological, technological and economic realities of our time. In autumn 2025, Pfeifer will present the first results of his collaborative research conducted at TUD`s University Gallery of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections (Kustodie); in addition, KOW Berlin and the Wexner Center for the Arts (USA) will show solo exhibitions by the artist in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

Mario Pfeifer, SchauflerResidency@TU Dresden 2025

About Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden and the Artist in Residence program:
Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden was founded in 2020 with the aim of researching and communicating the complex relationship between humans, machines, technology and the world from the perspectives of the social sciences, humanities and art. The two pillars of the project are a graduate school, Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden, and an artist-in-residence program, Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden. The residency, located at TUD’s Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections (Kustodie), offers committed and internationally active artists or artist groups the unique opportunity to conduct artistic research on the Lab’s respective key theme with scientists at TUD. The Kustodie establishes the university’s research and teaching collection as a whole as a symbol of scholarly and scientific practice, to make it a fruitful source of academic history, to question it discursively within the framework of current research topics and, with
educational methods, to open it up to the public at large. At the same time, it aims to activate the various material cultures in the scientific collections for artistic research.

The following artists have been guests at Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden:
Lena von Goedeke (2024), Rosa Barba (2023), Esmeralda Conde Ruiz (2022), Anton Ginzburg (2021) sowie Christian Kosmas Mayer (2020).