The Gasometer Oberhausen, a towering cylinder that overlooks the Rhine river in Germany, used to be filled with oil and gas. Today, the 400-foot-tall space is mainly filled with art. And, it turns out, a spare gas tank can make for a remarkably good canvas. Particularly when it’s equipped with 21 high-powered projectors blasting 320-degrees of light onto its surface.
German art collective URBANSCREEN has taken over the space to create 320° Licht, an incredibly large-scale light show that projects light onto—you guessed it—320-degrees of the tank’s walls.
The artists, known for their urban projection mapping installations, have cast light onto the Sydney Opera House’s sails and created an architectural lighting installation on the Bauhaus Prellerhaus’s facade, so they’re no stranger to daunting spaces. But when the folks at Gasometer approached them to do an installation as part of the Appearance of Beauty exhibition, the sheer size of the canvas left them with a few questions. “Our first question was, is that possible?” Till Botterweck, art director of Urbanscreen told Creators Project in a documentary.
The interior of the Gasometer is covered in black tar, which happened to be a perfect backdrop for projection mapping. "Through loads of tests we found out that you don't see the surface and that the space has a depth which can be controlled with the projection of shapes,” Botterweck explains. “You can create illusions that wouldn't work on a white surface."
This sense of depth is only enhanced by the shape-shifting patterns URBANSCREEN cast onto the walls. The room pulsates with Twilight Zone rings of light and shimmers with dots. The play of strategically placed light and shadow gives the illusion that the tank's walls are transforming before your eyes like an M.C. Escher drawing come to life.
In the video, you see workers crawling on catwalks hundreds of feet high, hoisting up metal structures and pulling ropes tight. In comparison to the vastness of the space, they’re like tiny ants crawling up the side of an endless can. The space itself is spectacle enough, which meant URBANSCREEN kept the optical illusions simple, focusing mainly on geometric shapes and organic, undulating motions. “We didn’t want to make a show out of it,” says Botterweck. “We wanted to play with the emotional impressions you get when you enter the room for the first time.”
[h/t: Creator's Project]
*320° Licht * will be at Gasometer Oberhausen until December 30, 2014.
