Thomas Stricker –
Heaven Above, Heaven Below
»Is not that moment the greater, when man is distance himself, is himself space, that moment when he experiences eternity? The man (…) who lives this timeless moment, this heavenly reality, in order to stride freely through space, this man has paradise in him.« (Otto Piene)*
For Thomas Stricker where we are, where we find ourselves and linger, is
definitely negotiable: He has created artificial islands,, dropped
meteorites on a tree and now brings heaven to earth. No, actually he
goes one step further: He brings the universe under the earth.
If you ride through or arrive at the Benrather Straße U-Bahn, there is
no other option than to travel through a spaceship. A spaceship whose
walls and ceiling are clad in stainless steel: transversely rectangular,
silver-colored sheets, pushing out points as vertical lines. These
points are reminiscent of Braille as well as dripping code or the
techno-modularized interior of spaceships, as we know them from Star
Wars or Star Trek. Yet, where we really find ourselves comes into
question through the six wall monitors. Arranged so that all inputs
converge, they open the earth up to the cosmos. You slip through a real
simulation of space, passing planets and moons, recognizing the gleaming
scattered light of stars, craters and hills. Inspired by images and
textures from the ESA and NASA, Stricker worked in collaboration with
235 Media, a media art agency based in Cologne, to design the
projections as a continuous journey. The monitors are synchronized: If
you look from one screen to the next, it is as though you are looking
out a passenger window. A comet, which has just now appeared in front of
you, flies by to your right, the room is part of a 3D animation, which
logically surrounds the »ship.« There is even a cockpit: The close
cooperation with netzwerkarchitekten made it possible for the slanted
columns and windows to offer an unimpeded view to the lower levels and
when you look back on the numerous silver modules, you quickly realize
that the departing U-Bahn is not a shuttle just leaving a hanger. When
asked about the meaning of his sculpture in an interview, Stricker
replied, »Perhaps, in the best case, a sculpture is a thing which
doesn’t obstruct my view, rather it expands my horizons?« This
expansion, the widening and movement of a limited U-Bahn space can be
experienced directly in Benrather Straße. It connects to the utopia of
conquering outer space, which has already been experienced by
Dusseldorf’s Zero artists as the legitimation of a new dimensionality of
their art. Stricker understands it as an almost meditative metaphor for
space: His »ship« is dominated by openings, oversized components – back
to the future – making the invisible visible. The sculptor animates
nothingness, the infinite blackness of space, and unites sculptural
opposites in his reversal of space: matter and non-matter, earth and
sky. This lends the room a connection to the basic functions of
perception, the distinction between object and environment, the
recognition of matter.
The vastness of artificial visual worlds is confronted with observations
of the globalized everyday that distance continues to shrink. Images
sent from satellites and captured by the antennas that adorn the roofs
of remote villages allow us to pause for a moment to make non-room into a
room. At Benrather Straße, Thomas Stricker has created an accessible
social sculpture that can be opened virtually: A »ship« that is
positively architecture when it moves through space.
*
Otto Piene, »Paths to paradise,« in: ZERO 3, Düsseldorf 1958; Reprint ZERO 1-3, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, Cologne 1973, p. 148 Back to top
