Timm ULRICHS, Wörter und Unwörter (2001). Sartre-Gymnasium

© timm ulrichs

Twenty Erco lights hung on a rod attached to the ceiling project twenty white circles of light on the dark asphalt floor of a long school hallway. The lights hang in two parallel rows, each 38 meters long, about 5.5 meters above the floor. The circles in one row of lights vary in size: starting at one meter in circumference at the entrance to the hall, they increase in size at an even pace until they reach a circumference of two meters at the other end of the hall. The size of the circles in the other row is exactly the opposite, decreasing in size from two meters to one meter in circumference.
One word or phrase appears as a shadow in each of the projected circles of light. In one row, words such as ”Rentnerschwemme” (glut of pensioners), ”Sozialverträgliches Frühableben” (socially acceptable early demise) ”Gotteskrieger” (warriors of God) or ”peanuts” are projected, and in the other row, words such as ”multimedia,” ”Rot-Grün” (red-green), ”11 September,” or ”Das alte Europa” (the old Europe) appear.