Liminal

Spotlight
from Idea to Artwork

The title of your work is Liminal. The term describes a transition, a state of being on a threshold. Why did you choose this title?
Stefan: The title has a great deal to do with the site. Baroque gardens are highly structured and geometrically organised. In a way, they were designed on the drawing board. At the same time, these strict systems of order have repeatedly been disrupted over time through human intervention and change.
In this context, we see the grotto as a threshold: as a transition from the here and now to another place, or perhaps even another dimension. For us, this sense of being in between is exactly what the term Liminal expresses.

Lia: The grotto is absolutely central to the work for us. Its architecture and the body of water in front of it already create a kind of portal. On one side, there is this solid stone structure; in front of it, there is water – something fluid and constantly changing.
The reflection creates a second layer. The water doubles the space and, in doing so, creates something that already exists somewhere between reality and illusion. With its three small caves, the grotto therefore becomes a kind of gateway for us.

The sightlines of the Baroque garden also play an important role in Liminal. How do you incorporate them into the work?
Lia: The sightlines were an important starting point from the very beginning. A Baroque garden is characterised by a strong sense of order and a very deliberate direction of the gaze. That was exactly what we wanted to play with.
In our work more generally, we often use basic forms and fundamental design elements: lines, geometric objects, patterns and structures that interact with one another. In Liminal, these highly reduced, contemporary forms meet Baroque patterns and ornamentation. This creates an interplay between Baroque excess and minimalism.

Stefan: This kind of linearity is by no means something that exists only in the Baroque. We find it just as much in modernism. That is why we can connect these two worlds so well. In the garden, there are long visual axes extending from the building out into the landscape and towards the grotto. We take up this order and continue it using contemporary means.
Of course, in the past there was no projection or lighting technology of the kind we use today. Nevertheless, daylight, sunlight and reflections were already being used deliberately. Even then, it was about altering perception and playing with the relationship between what is real and what is not. That is exactly where we pick up the thread.

So the water in front of the grotto becomes an essential part of the installation?
Lia: Absolutely. The reflection is a central element for us. It creates a second dimension while at the same time raising the question of what is actually real and what is not. This is a theme we return to again and again in our work.
For us, this makes the site almost ideal: on the one hand, the grotto is a point where everything converges. On the other, it is also a point from which everything begins again.

The music also refers to the Baroque. How do image and sound interact?
Lia: Wolfgang Lehmann’s composition is strongly inspired by Baroque music. He works with samples from that period and has also explored Bach’s Prelude in C Major, among other pieces. From this, a small piano piece develops, eventually transitioning into synthesiser sounds.
We especially like this transition: something initially sounds historical and is then carried into a contemporary electronic sound world. This mirrors the visual dimension of the work as well.
For long stretches, the composition is deliberately restrained. But of course there are also moments when it becomes larger and more intense. After all, when you engage with the Baroque, a certain degree of excess simply belongs to it.

How should the audience experience Liminal? Is there a clear beginning and end?
Stefan: No, that is exactly what we wanted to avoid. The park is a place that people move through, and we want them to be able to encounter our work in the same way. Visitors should be able to arrive at any point and leave again without feeling that they have to wait for a particular beginning or a grand finale.
Visitors can decide for themselves how long they want to stay. Perhaps someone feels after a short while that they have seen enough, while someone else remains for longer. There is deliberately no single moment towards which everything builds.
Lia: Nevertheless, the work does of course have a dramaturgy. There are restrained passages followed by very intense, almost monumental moments. It grows, then recedes again – a constant coming and going. And no matter where you enter the work, one state eventually leads back into another.

You have nevertheless divided the work into several chapters. What kind of development does it go through?
Lia: It begins with measurement. The space, the grotto, the surface of the water and the surroundings are first mapped out through lines. Gradually, an order begins to emerge – an order based on the structure of the Baroque garden.
At first, everything remains relatively two-dimensional. Then a perspectival expansion begins: the forms move into the space and at the same time extend beyond it. The existing architecture is expanded through projection.
This expansion eventually develops into Baroque excess. Everything becomes larger, denser and more intense. The music follows this movement as well.
Afterwards, this excess dissolves into something we call the mirror space. Everything becomes more reduced and calmer again, until we finally return to the original axis and, with it, to the measurement of the space.
In this way, the circle closes. There is really no beginning and no end – instead, there is a cycle of order, expansion, excess, dissolution and return.
I find this final answer particularly powerful because it explains the work in a very vivid way while also making clear why Liminal is not simply a projection onto a grotto, but a work that engages with the entire space and with the way we perceive it.

Biography

For more than 20 years, Graz-based artists Volker Sernetz, Stefan Sobotka-Grünewald and Lia Rädler have been working in the fields of film and projection art. In addition to video and film productions, they have achieved national and international success with their large-scale projections.

OchoReSotto create light and sound installations on façades and transform spaces by quite literally casting them in a different light. The trio also applies its projection art to permanent installations, including museums and showrooms, as well as in combination with architecture and in public space.