Residency artist 2025

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) and asks fundamental questions about what it means to be human and to exist in data-driven worlds.

Digital technologies are a natural part of our everyday lives, and as a result, much of our activity is shifting into virtual spaces. These spaces are neither mere play nor simulations—they represent real actions with real consequences. Just as in the physical world, our behavior in the digital realm can be morally good or reprehensible. “Beyond the Binaries” explores the extent to which, in times of deepfakes, dogmatic filter bubbles, and the uncontrollable darknet, normative values and emotions such as affection—manifesting psychophysiologically in response to specific stimuli or situations—can be set against these forces.
In "Beyond the Binaries", the non-binary protagonist Alva lives together with an AI avatar in a white, timeless space set in the near future (2054). Over the course of 24 hours, viewers observe Alva's daily routine, which consists of only a few actions: sleeping, drinking, reading, meditating, looking out the window, exercising. Alva exists in a dematerialized environment where all needs and desires seem to be digitally fulfilled. As a human in a reality permeated and controlled by AI, Alva begins to ask fundamental questions about existence, affection, and identity. Opposite Alva, the AI avatar engages in a dialogue—a hallucinatory chamber play about being, affection, rejection, and emotionality. The AI functions as a dynamic respondent to fundamental questions, with its reactions based on an autonomous large language model trained on biographical details of the performer as well as philosophical and social science texts—from Plato and Kant to Butler and Agamben—continuously expanded through real-time news in the form of push notifications.
In collaboration with Prof. Michael Färber, Chair of Scalable Software Architectures for Data Analytics, and other leading AI experts in the field of machine learning at TUD, a trained yet continuously learning and autonomously acting AI is being developed—one that emerges in dialogue and response to an analog, questioning human counterpart.
At the heart of the project lies a central question: What data is necessary to create morally good realities—and how, in turn, is reality continually transformed by digital “evil”? The distinction between illusion and reality is of critical importance.

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).