In 2016, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the famous artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, known for his large scale projections on statues and monuments. For the first time in his career, the artist wanted to produce an interactive piece, in which the public could walk up a staircase and have a discussion in realtime with refugees being projected on the Goethe & Schiller monument in Weimar.
My role in this project was to program a custom software that would map the realtime video feed of two refugees onto the statue, in order to produce the illusion of a living monument. Due to my technical knowledge of projection mapping I also got the role of technical supervisor of the project, working with various technical partners to deliver the best possible realization of Krzysztof Wodiczko's vision.
The Goethe-Schiller monument at the centre of Weimar is a tourist attraction and embodies the idea of national cultural heritage. The sign on the statue reads: «To the poets Goethe and Schiller, the Homeland». But what does «home» and «national identity» mean to the citizens of Weimar today? And what do refugees have to say about belonging? The Kunstfest together with the pioneer of video art in the public domain Krzysztof Wodiczko and the Bauhaus University Weimar have created an interactive video mapping with which the audience can lend the writers their voice and their face live on three evenings. Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 and teaches at Harvard University. He received the Peace Prize of Hiroshima for his work, which deals with topical political events and especially with the individual experience of war.
