Lichtwege

Spotlight
from Idea to Artwork

For KLANGLICHT IM PARK, you are developing a new work for the Schwarzenberg Garden. What can visitors expect?
Georg Trenz: Vienna is still very much a work in progress for us. Some parameters have already been determined, and they differ quite significantly from the conditions we encounter in Graz.
This time, there is no path that visitors walk along themselves. Instead, they look at a path – from an elevated vantage point. Visitors stand on a stone balustrade that follows the historic cascades through which water once flowed through the park. Around two or three metres below is a small pond framed by large boxwood spheres. From there, the view opens onto an avenue approximately two hundred metres long, leading directly towards Palais Schwarzenberg.
You cannot enter this path; you can only trace it in your mind. That is precisely what interests us. We are therefore working with static projections. Of course, the perception changes slightly as you move along the semicircular balustrade. Essentially, however, you are like an opera-goer sitting in a box and looking out onto a stage unfolding before you. This entire vista is illuminated statically using only a few projectors.

The installation also changes over the course of the festival weeks. What role does nature play in this?
Georg Trenz: That is indeed a fascinating aspect. The site will change over the course of the festival. The boxwoods will remain the same, but the trees along the avenue will gradually lose their leaves. As a result, the projection surface will be constantly changing. The work therefore responds to a park that is itself in a state of transformation.

What is the idea behind the design of the projections?
Georg Trenz: Our starting point was the historical significance of water in the Schwarzenberg Garden. We take up this idea, although not in an illustrative way, but in a highly abstract form.
The large-scale projections create something like a water surface. Over this, we place texts arranged in circular formations, reminiscent of the ripples that emerge when you throw a stone into a pond. It is not about depicting water, but about evoking the idea of it – these concentric movements that continue to spread outwards.
The architecture beneath the balustrade also plays an important role.

Detlef Hartung: Yes. We were particularly fascinated by the marble or stucco decoration of the wall beneath the balustrade. It is actually barely visible. You only discover it when you move to the side.
At its centre is a remarkable formal element: it looks as though a curtain were being raised in front of a grotto. Exactly where the visitors are standing, there is this darkness beneath the balustrade, while in front of them the landscape opens up with the small pond and the path leading towards the palace.
This creates a duality between two different lighting situations. On one side is the grotto – dark, mysterious and also somewhat threatening. This atmosphere continues in the reliefs at either side, whose figures almost appear to be fleeing from this darkness. On the other side, the view opens out into the light.
But it is not only about light. It is equally about emotional states. The grotto represents darkness, the unknown, perhaps even threat. Outside, something positive begins. The small pond lies exactly between these two poles.
For us, this place becomes a source. This is where the light is concentrated. From there, it spreads along the avenue all the way to the palace.

How is this idea translated into your texts?
Detlef Hartung: The texts deal with fundamental concepts of human existence – birth, death, love, reflection, existence and many other elemental experiences.
These concepts are woven into a structure that, in turn, consists of words relating to light and illumination. This creates two levels that continuously overlap. You read different contexts simultaneously and begin to move through this textual landscape.
I hope this creates a place that everyone can explore for themselves – almost like a dreamlike space.

Georg Trenz: I believe this will result in a very meditative work. The short terms relating to human existence, woven into this structure of words associated with light, feel to me a little like small coins being thrown into a well.
They provide an impulse to keep thinking, to keep illuminating, to keep radiating. You continually discover new connections. The true movement of the work is therefore not physical. Instead, it takes place through association, through continuing a thought, through reflection, and through connecting the terms with your own situation in life.

The working title is currently “Lichtweg”. Is that already the final title?
Georg Trenz: At the moment, “Lichtweg” is indeed our working title. At the same time, we are still discussing whether the ideas of water, flowing or the source should be reflected more strongly in the title.
A title is always a great help with a work like this. It opens up a space for interpretation and guides perception. So we are currently exploring whether the idea can be condensed to the point where the title describes the work even more precisely.
At the moment, however, I have absolutely nothing against “Lichtweg”.

The site itself seems to inspire you strongly. What role does its architecture play?
Detlef Hartung: A very significant one. We were particularly preoccupied with this curtain in front of the grotto. It almost appears to use a modern formal language, even though it is presumably of historical origin. If it really is that old, I find that extraordinarily fascinating.

Georg Trenz: For me, this curtain is above all a symbol of the stage and of theatricality. After all, in the Baroque period everything was staged. The garden was not a natural landscape, but a deliberately composed stage.

Detlef Hartung: We should also not forget that the original visual axis ran in exactly the opposite direction. Today, visitors stand on the balustrade and look towards the palace. When the garden was created, however, the central visual axis was actually the view from Palais Schwarzenberg towards this rondel.
So it was less about looking at the palace and more about moving towards this place – towards the grotto and this particular spatial situation, which today is barely perceptible to most visitors.
With our work, we therefore try to draw attention back to this area. Visitors will inevitably move to the left and right simply to discover what is located beneath the balustrade. At the same time, their gaze follows the progression of light back towards the palace.

So the visitors find themselves in a very particular perspective.
Georg Trenz: Exactly. It really is a kind of theatre-box situation. You stand in an elevated position and look out onto a scene that unfolds before you like a stage set. This is what fundamentally distinguishes the work from our installation in Graz.
For us, too, this is new territory. We have not yet been able to test this situation on site. That makes it all the more exciting to think in advance about how the projections will need to work. Which gobos will we use? Will we need perspective distortions? How will perception change from this elevated position?
All of these questions are already part of the artistic process.

Detlef Hartung: That is exactly why we are engaging so intensively with perspective. We deliberately want to distort the oblique projections so that, from the visitors’ point of view, they come together again to form a coherent overall image. To achieve this, we need extremely precise measurements of the site – even the height of the balustrade plays a decisive role. Only then can we calculate how the light will ultimately unfold within the space.

You often say that your works emerge from the specific location. Is “Lichtwege” an installation that can only work in the Schwarzenberg Garden?
Detlef Hartung: Yes, absolutely. The location is not merely a backdrop, but the starting point for our thinking. The architecture, the historic garden, the reliefs beneath the balustrade and the original visual axes – all of these elements feed directly into the development of the work.
What we find particularly fascinating is that many of these elements are barely consciously perceived today. The grotto beneath the balustrade, for example, remains hidden from most visitors. With the installation, we want to draw attention back to these details and place them in a new context.

Georg Trenz: At the same time, we are interested in the fact that the site changes over the course of the festival. The park does not remain the same. The leaves fall, the structure of the trees changes, and the light responds to this. So the work is not static, even though the projections themselves do not move.
We also like the idea that nature itself becomes part of the staging.

So visitors are not guided through the installation, but instead remain in one place.
Georg Trenz: Exactly. Normally, our works develop along a path that you physically walk through. Here, it is the other way around. Visitors remain at one point and allow the space in front of them to emerge.
This also changes the way the work is perceived. You do not experience the installation by moving through space, but through attention. You keep discovering new connections, reading different words and linking concepts together in new ways. The actual movement takes place in thought.

Detlef Hartung: We are interested in precisely this moment when perception begins to change. At first, you look at a landscape. Then you begin to read the texts, recognise connections and immerse yourself more and more deeply in these two layers.
Everyone will find their own path through it.

What role does light play in this?
Detlef Hartung: For us, light is not an end in itself. It does not tell a story; instead, it opens up a space in which meanings can emerge.
The terms we use revolve around elemental experiences of human life – birth, death, love, reflection or existence. At the same time, they are interwoven with terms relating to light. This creates a web that is never unambiguous. Everyone reads something different; everyone discovers different connections.

Georg Trenz: Perhaps that is why our work can best be understood as an invitation.
Like throwing a coin into a well, it creates a movement that continues to spread. One thought leads to the next. One word triggers memories, another opens up new associations.
For us, that is precisely where the power of this installation lies.

Bio

Over more than 20 years of collaboration, Detlef Hartung and Georg Trenz have developed their own distinctive form of artistic expression, transforming texts into powerful visual imagery. Concrete language becomes pictorial signs, both in terms of content and form. The resulting word-images create large-scale visual and textual spaces that enter into dialogue with the real, three-dimensional spaces onto which they are projected. 

Credits

Concept and Design: 
Hartung & Trenz
 

Sound: 
Timber Hemprich