All Installations

A house, this is what the set-up will look like. But a slightly different kind of house: made of vegetal light-diffusing barriers. It is organic, meanders like trees and plants as well as urban at the same time and is made up of industrial and daily-used elements.

Sound is emitted from various points of the set-up. Sounds such as those of jaws, imperceptible breaths, onomatopoeias, indefinable murmurs, thereby making the house appear alive and endowed with speech.

The spaces thus defined can be considered as improbable rooms or protective and mysterious cells that welcome the visitor and envelop them with their worrying strangeness. Midway between a hotel and a futurist station hall, the place is conceived to be an invitation for resting, strolling, dreaming and experiencing unexpected emotions. It is a reflection on habitat and human biotope in general and at the same time, an intense and enchanting sensorial experience.

‘Private Moon’ is a mobile light installation and a visual poem telling the story of a man who fell in love with the Moon and stayed with her for the rest of his life. Immersed in a dream, taking care of this heavenly creature, the man becomes a mythological being, crossing the borderline between the two worlds, living in the real world as if in a fairytale. Leonid Tishkov has taken his Moon on a journey around the world since 2003, having traveled with the artist across Russia, the USA, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, France, Germany, China, Ukraine, the Arctic and beyond. At the beginning of this year the Private Moon was shown in Leeuwarden (Netherlands), and now the installation has been moved to Brixen with the support of LUNA Leeuwarden, by Media Art Friesland Foundation.

Fragments of Reality is a sustainable installation that works without electricity. The technique consists of small mirrors moved by the wind to reflect the environment, natural light during the day and artificial light from lamps or moonlight at night. Moreover, this type of work changes each time depending on the point of view, the wind and the time of day. This work stimulates the imagination and lends itself to different interpretations by exploring the notion of perception: the visible and the invisible, the reflection of light and the mind. The reflections can be read as flocks of birds, schools of fish or dust through a ray of light.

The relationship between simulation, reality and the pursuit of understanding is largely reflexive. In the stories we tell and the worlds we build, we continually construct mirrors that offer meditations on our identity while becoming a part of nature itself. As Philip K. Dick says: "Reality is what doesn't disappear when you stop believing in it. A simulation is what doesn't stop when the stories disappear. The stories are answerable to our human desire for a solution, but a simulation is answerable only to its own laws and initialising conditions. A simulation has no morality, no prejudice and no meaning. Like nature, it is simple."

Bosphorus is a data sculpture inspired by high frequency radar data collections of Marmara Sea provided by Turkish State Meteorological Service in every 30 minutes intervals. The data collection of 30 days long sea surface activity is transformed into a poetic experience.

This " wall " weighing 6.4 tonnes represents the accumulation of about 8 days' plastic waste in the district of Brixen. However, a large part of the plastic produced worldwide ends up in watercourses and in the sea, where wave action and solar radiation cause it to break down into smaller and smaller pieces. In the form of microplastic, it eventually enters the food chain with unforeseeable consequences for humans and animals; microplastic has now also been found on our glaciers....

Unfortunately, this "wall" is invisible in the wild; imperceptible, it changes our existence forever. Plastic is a material that our society has unfortunately not yet learned to handle responsibly. Crockery, packaging, bags, straws, food wrappers and many other plastic products represent progress and convenience in our consumer society; but it is not enough to take plastic to the collection points; we urgently need to reduce its consumption.

Inverse Frequency is an interactive installation by Dutch artists Ivo Schoofs and Pepe Heijnen (Kinetic Humor) and invites visitors to explore the issue of climate change.

A dome of blue balloons extends over the Herrengarten and finds its centre above the fountain of the garden and represent the water rise of the oceans.

The four water jets spraying into the fountain are vibrating at a very specific frequency. The water itself is illuminated with stroboscopic light just above or below the frequency of the water drops. This results in an optical illusion: depending on the light frequency, the water seems to run up or down. Or at some point it’s even standing still!

The light frequency is controlled by a wheel next to the fountain which can be operated by the visitors. They become decision-makers themselves on the future of climate change.

Can you stop the water from rising?

Dialogue is a site-specific, fictional installation that plays with the moat around the Hofburg while creating an illusion of new spaces.

Three three-dimensional fluorescent shapes move in the water and thus form ever new figures, which are reflected on the water surface and enter a dialogue with each other. The moat becomes a new spatial dimension which, through the rhythmic movements of the forms and an artificially created swell, provides ever new insights.

Dialogue is a work that refers to the subjectivity of space and time and to the fact that everything is connected. The water surface here becomes a mirror that separates two worlds from each other, consciousness and subconscious merge into a unity that cannot always be clearly distinguished.

The installation consists of several cotton lanes, which are hung up for drying like fabrics in dye works. A video projection can be seen on these natural cotton sheets showing a river in the new trend colour. The textile industry devours large quantities of water and pollutes the environment. Water pollution is a major challenge, especially in textile refinement. Toxic tanning sludges and dyer's residues from the textile industry enter the rivers unfiltered in many places, so that the new trend colour of the coming season can already be seen in the colour of the rivers. The consequence: millions of people do not have clean drinking water and are plagued by disease. For years, catchwords like " cheap is cool" and "fast fashion" have determined our buying behaviour. Collections change in a short time and tempt us with low prices. What contribution is each one of us prepared to make?

Storia corta di una goccia tells the story of a drop of water, from its birth to its death, through various image and text passages. The language used by the author is simple and characterised by short, concise sentences. The visual language is colourful and consists mainly of geometric shapes. Reality and dream unite in a short story between humour and seriousness. Emmanuel Feliu has animated the images of the book and brought them to life.

The projection H₂O shows a complex pipe system with water and all kinds of colourful chemical reactions. What at first appears to be a large, amusing simulation of a chemical factory points to one of the biggest problems of our time: water is becoming increasingly scarce and is being privatised and commercialised. At the same time, our drinking water is polluted with various toxins, such as pesticides from agriculture or chemicals from industry. The toxins, which often remain invisible in the real world, become the central design element in the video.

The installation "Sounds of the River" has been switched off after the International Day of Light in agreement with the light artist Kari Kola.

On the homepage of the Finnish artist Kari Kola you can read I am a light artist, an artist of light who has replaced the paintbrush with light and who creates paintings which are unparalleled thanks to modern technology. Thus, the canvas has long since been replaced by air, water, meadows and forests. Sounds of the river is an installation in which two rivers are fused into one using blue light beams, that create a shape of imaginary island floating in the air. The elements of water and air are always present and interconnected. The artist uses high light element in the air, creating an atmospheric artwork, which gives a great ambience in the whole area, marked as a place where the two rivers are meeting. The soundscape of the installation is created with the assistance of underwater microphones, from both rivers.

Close your eyes, make a wish... and blow with all your heart! 15 beautiful coloured spheres float above the ground and transform the park Rappanlagen into a field of sparkling bubbles that light up when you blow on them. LNLO believes in the magic powers of positive thinking: to wish for something, to have a dream, is already half a reality! The wish bubble symbolises the power of our hopes and dreams. The longer you blow, the more sincere and convinced are your hopes, the further the light travels... and the greater the chance that your wish will come true!

Are your hope and willpower strong enough to illuminate all 15 spheres?

Water is the main component of our body; we feel most strongly the need for liquid in the mouth on the tongue. It is the interface between the outside and the inside and consequently also has a double function as "receiver" and "sender" of liquid.

At present, water cannot be separated from climate issues and despite the consequences of global warming, the issue remains abstract for most of us. The idea of thirst is familiar to everyone and touches people directly in their survival instinct. Thirst has no external effect; this need takes place inside the person and influences him physically and psychologically.

In his work, Philipp Messner stages the tongues as independent beings and thus turns them into objects of reflection: a space that is normally turned inwards is turned outwards and displayed in a public place.

The Alps are warming up more than other areas of the planet, and this change affects the disappearance of glaciers, water availability and life at high and low altitudes. The danger is right in front of our eyes, even if we do not want to realise it and we only think about the effects of climate and nature when they manifest themselves in a destructive way.

The artist Stefano Cagol encourages us to reflect on the complex mosaic of causes and effects that make up the picture of climate changes, propagating an inexorable signal of danger that spares no one. He does this with his light and sound artwork "The Global Warning", a bitter word game that plays on the proximity between the English words warming and warning.

The symbolic luminous effect of alarm is underlined by the sound, which translates the frequencies emitted by the heat of the sun into sound waves, introducing the sounds caused by the melting of a glacier.

"The Global Warning" was studied in the summer of 2019. Suspended in time, it now takes on additional meanings: the global warning is reinforced in spurring us to build a better future.

The Ice is Melting at the Pøules is a fragment of an overall art project wearemelting.art. It consists of an ever changing analogue and organic projection made by light shining through rotating and enclosed glass discs. These discs contain actual meltwater from the ice sheet in Greenland, blue dye from endangered cornflowers and crude oil from an actual oil field in USA. The incompatibility of the materials used stands metaphorically for oil production and the associated problems regarding global warming.

The work The Ice is Melting at the Pøules Pøules tells the story of the more than 13 million litres of ice melting – each second.

Wasser- Acqua – Vida - Eau

How is Water important in our lives?

How is Water essential for our world?

Those existential questions lead the artists to create the abstract light W A V E sculpture, especially

for Große Lauben street, multilingual to illustrate the transversal preoccupation Water should

be for all of us.

It shows how Water flows, universal, transparent and always there.

Everybody is bathed in its light as we all have been in the womb. All the same, all equals, and then,

we are going out, exiting the street, and going into the world, born again.

The sculpture affects our perception of the world letting the view of the mountain pass through its

segments.

Let’s keep it pure.

Let’s share it with all.

Let’s protect it as it protects us.

Two sprinklers dance around their own axis, splash water, sink into the misty rain and start the game again and again. Every quarter of an hour, the sprinklers wake up and begin their love game, the outcome of which is uncertain but full of passion.

Floating Stars is a participatory installation that is subject to constant change through interaction with the audience, constantly changing and growing. In a water basin visitors have the possibility to let tea lights float, which carry wishes or thoughts.

The water surface and the tea lights are filmed and projected in real time onto the opposite house facade. The work combines analogue and digital techniques. The installation is complemented by a composition of the Portuguese musician Luís Cília.

The basin is a metaphor for the sky, the lights represent the stars. We are all part of the universe and as such connected to each other. The installation encourages to participate in the project and thus to get in touch with the other, each is part of a whole.

The Source is an immersive light and sound installation consisting of two parts.

The first phase took the artists' collective to the water sources that feed the historic centre of Brixen. During various inspections, the artists filmed watercourses and springs and captured various sound recordings. The recordings then formed the basis for the actual work. Water movements, light reflections and the sounds of the water were analysed in a second moment and translated into light. The result is an atmospheric light and sound composition that dissolves the spatial separation between fountain and spring. The pattern of light and sound around the fountain takes the audience on a journey that recalls the precious natural resource of water and places its origin at the heart of the work.

Clemens Rudolph's work was created within the framework of the town twinning between Brixen and the city of Regensburg. It sees itself as a surreal, imaginative journey behind the façade of the building. What initially appears to be a shallow look behind the scenes soon turns out to be a ride into a new world. Architectural elements, individual components and parts of the house membrane are brought to life by the water and develop new dynamics, forms and functions. Water is understood here as the central element of the journey and the origin of transformation.

The Italian artist Massimo Uberti builds on the unusual heptagonal basic structure of the fountain, an octagonal building, which in its form and shape is evocative of the typical baptisteries. He sets a balancing counterpoint to the unusual structure of the building and gives the existing fountain a new form and function. The filigree construction consists of fine, gold-coloured metal tubes. Windows and doors of the baptistery consist of bent neon tubes.

With "Battistero d'oro" Uberti builds a bridge to a Christian tradition, which was particularly widespread in Italy and gave great importance to baptisteries. The octagonal floor plan of the baptisteries is based on an eschatological thought: on the first day of the week (Sunday) Christ rose from the dead, and so the original first day of creation was regarded as the eighth day and day of new creation.

Baobabs are monumental and memorable trees that can be found mainly in the African continent. Their silhouettes are incomparable to any other on the planet and their skin is sometimes resembling elephants’ skin. Baobab trees are real “water towers”, intended to survive in regions of high heat. For centuries, men have learned living with them. As an artwork at the festival, they will testify to their relationship to water and humans by being projected directly onto the residential facades. Clouds will move slowly between the baobabs and birds flit from one tree to another.

The compositions of the trees are inspired by the photos of Pascal Lemaître (Y Rocher foundation).

Composition and original idea: Benoît Quero

Creative team: Les Allumeurs d’Images

According to Heraclitus' river doctrine, the primary experience of the world is a continuous metabolism and change of form: "Whoever climbs into the same river will always have different water flowing to him. You can't go down the same river twice." The river doctrine is to be understood in connection with Heraclitus' teaching of the oneness of all things. Being is an eternal becoming and changing. The flowing water is a metaphor for this. In the midst of the stream of festival visitors, river words and quotations wash around the façade of St. Erhard and transform the static architecture into a moving sign using typographic means.

In history, colours have long been used as symbols to convey meaning and enhance works of art. The Dome of Brixen has been first painted in yellow, and, later on, in blue-grey tones, as evidenced by the painting found in archives of Hofburg in the recent years. The projection on the dome will take us on a journey through the colours of the cathedral – greys, greens and blues, reminiscent of the colours of water surrounding the city. It is seen as a gradual evolution of the luminous state comparable to a slow and inexorable shift from day to night. The cathedral does not live on its own. It is also the centre of the square which holds her name – that is why the whole square will be illuminated, to speak of the grandeur of the location and its centrepiece, the Dome.

Composition and original idea: Werner Zanotti and Benoît Quero

Creative team: Les Allumeurs d’images

Sound creation: Orel

Franzensfeste Fortress, the largest historical complex in South Tyrol, located next to a river at which the artist presents another installation, serves as a great inspiration for the artist and a connection with the project Sounds of the River, on view at the city of Brixen. The installation is based on very slowly changing colours that will transform the whole area. Different layers of the fortress will be used, creating a strong contrast with how the fortress looks like and is perceived during the day. A site, that sparked the inspiration of the artist with its history of being a military fortress which was not in use and that changed its function to become home for the arts and exhibitions, therefore the goal of the artist is to create abstract, painting-like images, to reflect the diverse history of the site.

Vincenzo Marsiglia, who has made a name for himself in and outside Italy, mainly in the field of digital and interactive art, will be a guest at the Brixen Water Light Festival 2020 with the exhibition Senses and spaces in the fortress Franzensfeste. The exhibition includes current works by the artist, which he has adapted in dialogue with the fortress, some created especially for the site. Characteristic elements in the artist's work, such as the four-pointed star, whose concise geometry and form have become a trademark of Marsiglia, as well as the interaction with the public, run through all the works of the art exhibition. The play of light in the installations dissolves the boundary between inside and outside, making the exhibition tour a unique perceptual experience.

The work "Delight" (2008) is based on two artistic design media that are central to Brigitte Kowanz's work: light in its various manifestations and language. That the artist is always concerned with the process of perception is shown by her playful use of the term "Delight", which can be read by the viewer as "Light" and "Delight" at the same time.

The "Expanded Willow Blatt" sculpture from 2000 is part of the artist's multifaceted "Blatt" series, which he developed in Munich and presented there for the first time. The models for this series originate from drawings Sonnier made of native palm trees in his home state of Louisiana.

The spectacular works of the "Circular Glass Series" enable a visual and sensory experience of light in an everyday architectural setting that was previously reserved for larger installations by the artist. The unique pieces in this series are related to the "Small Glass" series from 2016, which attracted great attention from a wide audience. The "Circular Glasses" are also individually programmed using the latest LED technology. Their physical structure refers to Turrell's "Shallow Space Constructions" from the late 1960s and early 1970s. With this series, the artist continues his exploration of technological possibilities in conjunction with sensory practices, inviting the viewer to a meditative experience.

Häusler Contemporary Zürich