wintersonne

world expo zaragoza

An oversized, walk-in snow globe is the central object of the installation. It’s surrounded by a panoramic, animated projection: this coveted Austrian patent for a wintertime souvenir becomes a habitat for humans in far-reaching, abstract landscapes. People in happy moods move or recline in relaxed poses on a glacier meadow, a field of sunflowers, at a mountain lake and between the haystacks on a freshly mown field. The land boosts its natural and seasonal resources for summer- or winter vacation, to become total and artificial event horizon. We are in the near future of simulated weather. Have a sunbath on the glacier? Any time you want!

photos: a. giannotti, m. loizenbauer, c. haring

The slow, almost private poses of the performers in the projection discreetly mingle with those of random posers. They all are at the lake’s shore and look invitingly at the visitors in the pavilion. From time to time the virtual people come close to the edge between the projection and the auditorium. They seem to bend over the space of their own projection, to stand there and ask the visitor the question, of what their expectations are: what do they wish for, in an ideal country? Maybe it’s only for something like this to happen, at an ideal shore.

The golden section, the fine line of balance is simulated by the projection as a purely virtual line, a stage horizon, which at the same times shows – and blurs – the relationship between the in- and the outside.The transparent zones of looking in and looking out condense the scenic route through the weather zones into a game of showing and looking, through snowflakes, and the sand, and the glacier and back. A drifting through the biospheres, until all are immersed in the same element and the virtual water flows into itself.

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glacier beach

In an ideal country you can have every kind of weather at the same time. There are ideal conditions as well as all the seasons at all the time. All the seasons simultaneously turn every vacation into ideal, total time. Because holidays are a time out of the ordinary, it’s the ideal time, the time where summer is only summer, and winter is only winter, and summer is winter, and winter summer. In the future, weather is a projection. It is weather on demand. So, in order to satisfy everybody, there is the cross sum of all weathers. A Glacier Beach.

it’s like in heaven, where everything happens at once, and all at the same time. in this cool, alpine heaven, where we all meet again, as if we had never been anywhere else, never been away.

The future of any given country lies in its people. The people form an ideal landscape. And only a landscape consisting of people is alive lastingly. The mass of the people spreads out to the horizon like a mountain range. The people are their own horizon. The horizon is us. Within the mountain range we meet ourselves and each other. We came wanting to go be on vacation and to look at the country. But the country rose up and looked back. The country took, and the country became a bath in the crowd. The leisure people, loosely scattered about the open horizon of the glacier beach exert a timeless life. A beach means sensuality. A virtual salvation from the everyday show-offs of cloth- and power, and the power they take.

Glacier Beach is closer to heaven than any other beach.
The Glacier Beach is the jewel of any ideal country.

text: k. zakravsky

27/11/2008

Architekturzentrum Wien, AT

19/07/2008

EXPO Zaragoza, ES

14/06/2008

EXPO Zaragoza, ES

dates

Artistic Direction, Choreography, Video: Chris Haring
Performance and Choreography: Luke Baio, Stephanie Cumming, Katharina Meves
Composition, Acoustic Environment: Glim (Andreas Berger)
Stage Design, Light: Thomas Jelinek
Video, Editing, Foto: Michael Loizenbauer
Video, Editing: Viktor Schaider, Blendwerk
Production Management: Marlies Pucher
Stage Design, Visuals: Aldo Giannotti
Text: Katherina Zakravsky

Performance for the Opening of the Austrian Pavilion on June 19th 2008 at the World EXPO Zaragoza

credits