Terre Roulante

Spotlight
from Idea to Artwork

Your works often engage with natural science, mathematics and astronomy. Where does Terre Roulante begin?
In my artistic practice, I am deeply concerned with the question of how our reality is structured and which systems of order we have developed in order to understand the world. I am interested in those systems we perceive as self-evident and constant – and especially in the moment when they begin to shift. What happens when supposed certainties suddenly become unstable? When something we believed to be a constant of nature turns out not to be one at all?
This question runs through many of my works. I have worked intensively with the subject of time, with scientific puzzles and with phenomena such as the movement of the magnetic north pole. Developments like these make it clear that even systems we rely on every day have to be constantly adjusted. I am interested precisely in this moment when our understanding of the world has to be renegotiated.
That is why natural science, mathematics, geometry and astronomy play such a central role in my work. In the end, many of these reflections repeatedly lead back to the movements of the planets and to the laws of the cosmos.

What role does the Schwarzenberg Garden play in this work?
Terre Roulante is a site-specific work and refers directly to the former Baroque garden. What interests me most is the close connection between the development of the Baroque garden and the scientific advances of the 17th and 18th centuries.
During this period, major progress was made in mathematics, geometry and perspective. Only through these developments did it become possible to measure gardens mathematically and lay them out according to geometric principles. Nature was measured, ordered and translated into a system. Behind this was the desire to understand the world – but also to control it.
That is exactly where my interest begins. What happens when this control is lost? When nature escapes the systems we impose on it?
Baroque gardens follow mathematical principles. They are an expression of a worldview that attempts to structure nature and represent the cosmos in an ideal order. At the same time, they were often understood as a kind of microcosm – a reflection of the universe on a smaller scale.

How did you arrive at the historical source material?
During my research, I searched digital archives for historical engravings. That is how I came across the work of the French mathematician and engraver Sébastien Leclerc, who worked at the court of Louis XIV.
Leclerc was deeply engaged with geometric constructions, perspective and astronomy. His drawings are less naturalistic representations than mathematical models and constructions.
One of these drawings eventually became the starting point for my installation.
The title Terre Roulante derives from a handwritten note on this historical graphic from 1706. I was less interested in the exact astronomical statement than in the intellectual context from which the drawing emerged.

How is this historical drawing translated into the installation?
I extracted a section of this mathematical construction and translated it into a large-scale, three-dimensional light installation made of neon.
The aim is explicitly not to reproduce the historical drawing one-to-one. Leclerc himself translated astronomical relationships into mathematical constructions. I, in turn, translate this construction into a spatial body of light.
This creates another layer of transformation. The work deliberately moves away from an exact scientific representation and instead opens up a spatial experience.
It is precisely through this process that a new level emerges between science, history and the present.

What thoughts would you like visitors to take away with them?
It is important to me that the work can initially function independently of its background.
My installations are highly reduced and formal. They should be able to work aesthetically even if you do not yet know the story behind them.
At the same time, these forms are usually based on very extensive research. They are never random lines or intuitive drawings, but almost always derive from scientific processes or mathematical models.
When visitors later learn where these forms come from and what history lies behind them, an entirely new level of meaning opens up.

What role does light play in this?
For me, light is an immaterial material.
It is physically present, yet at the same time it has something fleeting and alive about it. Neon fascinates me in particular because you can actually see that the gas is flowing through the tubes, making the sculpture appear almost alive.
I am interested in the way light can transform spaces. It expands them, changes how they are perceived and creates something that goes far beyond a conventional material.
It is precisely this connection between materiality and immateriality that makes light such an extraordinary artistic medium for me.

Biography

Miriam Hamann, whose works move between sculpture and installation, combines scientific abstraction with visual clarity.

In her installations and sculptures, Miriam Hamann (1986, Wels) explores scientific phenomena and their influence on our understanding of the world. By questioning their validity, she reveals systems of order as changeable constructs and asks what happens when we let go of the illusion of complete control. Her works open up a space for reflection between science, philosophy and the often intangible dimensions of our reality.

Credits

Concept and Planning:
Miriam Hamann

Technical Realisation:
Neonline