Friedrichshain by the Sea

In summer this year I had the pleasure of getting to know the Berlin based artist Monika Goetz. Monika usually makes exterior installations and her work is (consciously or not) very connected to light and lighting effects, reflection and refraction. As it is with lighting, in her installations it is the personal experience of the observer a very much intrinsic part of the installation.

For her installation at the Alte Feuerwache in Friedrichshain in Berlin, Monika created the art piece using ca. 18.000 recycled wine and sekt bottles. Her installation resembles a “what if” situation. The idea and critique to rising sea levels – very much with the Zeitgeist of these days – imagines the sea level rising up as far as Friedrichshain in Berlin.

Using the historical room of the old firestation, Monika fills the arches in the space with the bottles, sorting tones of green, brown and white to create the impression of waves in the space. During the setting up she gave different names to the bottles to facilitate her design: “maiglöckchen, eis, weiß, rotkäppchen, tanne, dunkelolive, olive, hellgrün, senf, bräunlich, braun, grün-blau”.

I had the pleasure of creating the lighting for her installation and for the gallery space, with the help of  Jochen Lochner and one of my team members, Carolin Liedtke. Together, we created a slightly dark atmosphere and had the bottles illuminated from behind. To bring the most of the materiality and colour shades of the bottles, we used 2 types of lights:

• Diffuse fluorescent with light colour of 4000K
• Halogen PAR30 spots with light colour 2700-3000K

The Alte Feuerwache has ca. 20 year’s old E27 Erco track mounted spotlights, which we used with the old-school halogen lamps. The reason to “go back” to old-school halogen lamp was a pure effect and materials one. With the halogen lamp we achieved a much richer brilliance effect on the surface of the glass bottles (compared to retrofit E27 LED lamps). And, we were very happy to see how good lighting equipment can last such a long time and remain in very good conditions.

Because the “wave wall”s created an empty room, we decided to use this room for positioning the lighting equipment – hidden from the visitor’s view. The local lighting installation – fluorescent and spots – as it was, wouldn’t suit the installation, as glare from the light source was something we wanted to avoid.

Also interesting to see is the effect when walking around in the space. The brilliance and density of the materials can be perceived only with the participation of the observer feeling the space. Another successful installation by Monika Goetz, where the observer makes the art work liveable.

The installation is running until 9th February 2020.  After the exhibition is over, the bottles will be destroyed and taken for recycling as old glass. I like that idea, as the installation becomes effemeral and leaves no residue in the world. All is recycled. Hope you have enjoyed.

See you in the next post

#thelightingtips