Daniel von Sturmer

• Amelia Winata

The two current exhibitions from Melbourne-based Daniel von Sturmer at Anna Schwartz Gallery are billed as discrete offerings, a fact underscored by the exhibitions’ separate closing dates. CATARACT, on the gallery’s ground floor, is a video work comprised of 81 small television screens that have been arranged in a grid formation, nine high and nine across. Upstairs is Electric Light, an incarnation of an older work that was originally shown at Collingwood’s Bus Projects in 2017. However, this work is not identical to that shown at Bus. It is necessarily site specific because the light projection at the heart of Electric Light is programmed to highlight particular fixtures in the gallery such as power sockets and fire sprinklers. Despite the overly conscious isolated billing of the two works, CATARACT and Electric Light share von Sturmer’s ongoing preoccupation with the human-shaped environment, explored by the creation of works that act as artificial environs within themselves.