Großherzogliche Grabkapelle Karlsruhe
2005
scaffolding, machine unit
model with metal bars (welded), spot lights
Equipment - Megaforce Veranstaltugstechnik GmbH
Host & Support - Vermögen und Bau Baden-Württemberg
Amt Karlsruhe, HfG Karlsruhe
Photography - Martin Lorenz, Herbert Boswank and Dina Boswank
Additional Funding - German-French Youth Organisation / Dt.-Frz. Jugendwerk
Thanks to - Mark Liese, Christoph Heckner, Martin Henning, Annabel Lange, Boris Burckhardt, Hr. Bohnacker
Truly fascinated by those discussions I started to collect photographs of the huge scaffoldings and put an eye on some old hand-drawn floor plans of the formerly baroque church. It was quite interesting to watch the overall working process at the church - from collecting the old black sand stones and categorizing each of them in metal shelves to re-mounting them, high up a the correct positions. For many months, the site was hidden after big metal walls. These structural walls appeared to the outside / the urban surrounding as vertically erected floor plans of the old church, cryptically labeled with numbers and letters as signifieres for a certain row, height and placement.
All those assembled impressions and materials were leading to the aesthetic concept of turning the perspective itself, its very material components and objects by reducing the reconstructional attempts to putting up a visually enabling installation inside a church. It should utilize the abstraction of the old floor plans as a blueprint. It should also use the metal patterns as a visual illusion through which to reimagine the surrounding building.
In late 2004, during my studies at HfG Karlsruhe, I discovered the old church of the Grand Dukes in Karlsruhe, where I was able to realize this project.
In the floor plan of this chapel the hexagon is the dominant geometrical form. Through overlaying, overlapping and graphically understanding the hexagons in a certain manner, an illusionistic pattern of cubes can appear. A real, architectural pattern as well as a fantastic, mindful one, as the installation is hanging it 18 m high in the cuppola of the church without touching the ground but made out of a scaffolding.
It was hanging in the middle of the church, 18 m high from the cupola to the ground.]