Rainer Kehres

We met some years ago at the ZKM I Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, in a group of artists who were working for the Center. As our interests always went far beyond music and architecture, we found out that working with light and lamps was a common passion. The light installations we make are a permanent fusion of our histories and interests where aspects of composition and construction come together by the medium of light. The upcoming work for the church is an especially wonderful example of our ambitions in public space.

Sebastian Hungerer

In the beginning it started with small collaborations like a light sculpture for a stage design, which ended up getting bigger and bigger because we were falling more and more in love with the lamp thing.

Sebastian Hungerer

For the ZKM's big light art exhibition we intended to do something in the atrium. We had that giant room and we wondered what we would do with it. Something small would look like a tiny stamp so we said, we might draw on our ability to work with big rooms, as architecture and music can change a whole place.

Rainer Kehres

It looked like a huge curtain made of 192 lamps hanging in a grid, each occupying a space 85 centimeters square, all together 14 meters wide and 11 meters high. It was a hovering light construction, and the configuration reminded us of the early computer game Space Invaders. Although it has nothing to do with the game, we kept the title because it literally means an intervention in a space—and that's what it was. It developed its own magnetism, by day as a gleaming light sculpture, at night as a glowing bonfire multiplied in the reflecting glass walls and roof of the ZKM's old industrial architecture.

Sebastian Hungerer

We took care to hang them accurately, so that it would not look like a lamp shop. Each lamp regardless of size, origin, or value had the same space. We are interested in the history of the lamps, so we wanted to give each and every lamp the same space and the same value. We also carefully considered where to hang each lamp. The placement is not incidental; we change them around a lot before we find the perfect setting.

Sebastian Hungerer

We have maybe four thousand lamps in our workshop and all of them have a particular history. In this case our interest was that the lamps would not spotlight the space but would glow in all directions. What we really liked about the space at the ZKM is that people enjoyed their time below the lamp curtain of Space Invaders by sharing memories. They would spot certain lamps and older people might say, "I had this lamp with my ex-husband in 1954," which added another layer to the lamps' histories.

Rainer Kehres

In the future we are thinking of adding a recording console on the ground where everybody can feed or retrieve memories.

Sebastian Hungerer

Yes, something that shows people sharing their stories, which are different for each and every lamp.

Rainer Kehres

We have already started to make our works interactive. For our development—and the development of guest artists from all over the world—the ZKM is a unique place: it is not only two museums, but also a venue of different institutes for research and production in the fields of visual media, music and acoustics. Director Peter Weibel and his staff have supported us a lot.

Sebastian Hungerer

We enjoyed watching the atrium at the ZKM become a communication focus, seeing people who didn't know each other start responding to the lamps. The place where the piece hung was perfect for us because you could see it from all floors and bridges of the atrium, and people felt invited to move all around and join all the different points of view.

Sebastian Hungerer

Actually we knew a lot of stories about the lamps used in the ZKM because you can ask people when you buy a lamp on eBay or at the flea market, "Just give me a short story about the lamp—do you know where it hung, why did you sell it?" But with the Pulitzer it is more special. In the beginning, we had the idea of bringing lamps to St. Louis from the former parliament building of East Germany, which has a very specific history dating back twenty years ago, when the wall came down. But then we developed the idea to get the lamps from the St. Louis area, to bring histories of this certain area together; and by good fortune the Pulitzer was able to get for us a story and picture of each lamp with the help of the local community. When we saw the Pulitzer's lamp collection Web site for the first time, we were freaking out. For example, there is a lady called Meredith with two lamps. With the orange lamp, if I remember right, it is actually quite a sad story. She tells that about ten years ago her brother died and she took the lamp from his apartment. So the lamp has a special history for her; for us it has something to say, definitely. I won't forget that story. Then, about her other lamp she said, "This lamp was a present from my ex-boyfriend's mother." And we love this! We have these contradictions. It's a simple lamp, one might say, but people have memories. We try to share the memories of these people and put them in one piece. This is why we are so lucky to have the possibility of collecting lamps at the Pulitzer.

Rainer Kehres

Over the last ten years the ZKM has been converted from a factory to a lively center for art with an important influence on the whole city; in the church and the surrounding area there is still a lot of potential for a transformation. So the lamps are gathered not from elsewhere but from St. Louis, which gives the work a more concrete and local context. Also, there are different technical demands. We continue to use indoor lamps as our working material in a public space because every lamp carries its own history and the individual expectations and prospects of its owner. Normally light in public spaces as well as the history of development of artificial light in general is determined by business and security rules. The place of the burnt church is a wonder and a dream for our work: fire ended its usefulness to the community, and now we have the opportunity to give it a new life with light emitted through the lamps of the community.

Sebastian Hungerer

The church is, in a way, different because it is an open space. We have weathering and wind and other climate effects on the installation which we did not have at the ZKM. The nice thing about the Spring Avenue church is that you'll see the church from far away, yet the closer you get, you have a different perspective and angle. I am looking forward to that moment where you get closer and closer and go inside and just look up, and then you see through the whole missing roof and only the lamps are left.

Sebastian Hungerer

After the roof burned seven years ago, they stabilized only the gables and the walls, so this is the situation at the moment. We are planning to put up scaffolding and wire strings with 289 lamps connected along the whole thing.

Rainer Kehres

The scaffolding holds the tension of the seventeen wire strings. At night it will disappear so that the installation may be like a swinging light harp between earth and sky.

Sebastian Hungerer

We think even our curator will bring a lamp. That's what she said...

Rainer Kehres

We hope that this factor will attract people to Grand Center, not only to see our installation, but all the other installations during that time, too. They will light the area from very different perspectives.

Sebastian Hungerer

Although safety regulations prevent us from admitting people into the church, we would also like for people to go inside the installation. That moment from outside to inside would change the aesthetic experience dramatically.

Sebastian Hungerer

That's right, you would get that light as a shelter and, on the other hand, you still have the church atmosphere. It will hopefully be a unique room.

Rainer Kehres

The roof will still be open. We prefer a lightweight and airy construction for the lamps, to make it transparent so that you have an enlightened room and also see the sky—and from above you can look down into the church.

Sebastian Hungerer

Kind of reversing the normal theme of transparent windows.

Rainer Kehres

And as you walk around, the images in the windows will constantly change.

Rainer Kehres and Sebastian Hungerer

We'll call it CHORUS. The title indicates the engagement of the community as well as it deals with the building. As a term used in music and in architecture, the title also covers our former individual professions and history. To make CHORUS resonate, it will be an adventure until the last moment.