Geschichtsbilder, 1992
Site: Abbey / Castle Corvey
Facing a perfect baroque Castle, which had been originally a monastery I did immediately knew that I could not add anything what would have amplified the aesthetic impact of the architecture. Thus I did not want to relate formally to the existing built reality with my artistic intervention. But the huge amount of daily tourism triggered the wish to wrap the whole Castle in a sort of gift paper for souvenirs. During the conception phase of this project and the related researches I found in the castle library, which had been compiled at times of the Biedermeier, a richly illustrated edition of the historical epos “Dreizehn Linden”, which deals with the foundation of the site Corvey as a monastery in the 9. century by King Louis the Pious.
Based on these illustrations, I have designed a repeating pattern, similar to those which are known from Biedermeier wallpapers. This pattern I projected with two huge slide projectors every evening on to the baroque west facade and the meadow in front. Thus a projection space of more then 100 meters depth has been created.
During his walk through this light space, the observer could barley recognize the images laying on the ground, because they had been distorted up to 25 meters in length. Only in the immediate vicinity of one of the two projectors he could see the thrown picture almost undistorted: The scenes from the closest projector then seem to float in space, while the others still appeared flat and distorted.
At dusk and at night fictional “Images of History“ had been wrapping the palace complex with agleam scenes related to foundation of the site.
Facing a perfect baroque Castle, which had been originally a monastery I did immediately knew that I could not add anything what would have amplified the aesthetic impact of the architecture. Thus I did not want to relate formally to the existing built reality with my artistic intervention. But the huge amount of daily tourism triggered the wish to wrap the whole Castle in a sort of gift paper for souvenirs. During the conception phase of this project and the related researches I found in the castle library, which had been compiled at times of the Biedermeier, a richly illustrated edition of the historical epos “Dreizehn Linden”, which deals with the foundation of the site Corvey as a monastery in the 9. century by King Louis the Pious.
Based on these illustrations, I have designed a repeating pattern, similar to those which are known from Biedermeier wallpapers. This pattern I projected with two huge slide projectors every evening on to the baroque west facade and the meadow in front. Thus a projection space of more then 100 meters depth has been created.
During his walk through this light space, the observer could barley recognize the images laying on the ground, because they had been distorted up to 25 meters in length. Only in the immediate vicinity of one of the two projectors he could see the thrown picture almost undistorted: The scenes from the closest projector then seem to float in space, while the others still appeared flat and distorted.
At dusk and at night fictional “Images of History“ had been wrapping the palace complex with agleam scenes related to foundation of the site.