This installation needed the WE in order to BE.
At the centre of the installation stood a 3.5-metre-high tower with twenty laser projectors. These projected a coherent image, but there was no specific surface at which the devices were aimed. Instead, 300 white banners were available for visitors to take and use to capture the image – which would otherwise float freely in the air – as if on a screen. The projected motifs were assembled from historical footage taken from various archives or from material created during the workshop. One person alone could make a small part visible; when several people came together, a larger picture appeared. In this way, people were able to unite in a peaceful demonstration to remember those who courageously took to the streets in 1989 for freedom and democracy. An abstract sound collage by Adam Salman featuring sounds from 1989 – music, demonstration noises, eyewitness voices – completed the installation.
WE ARE
Glowing Bulbs
Participatory video installation
on Augustusplatz
WE ARE at a glance
Glowing Bulbs artist collective in portrait
Glowing Bulbs is an artist collective based in Budapest and New York that realises projects around the world. Glowing Bulbs emerged in 1998 from Budapest’s vibrant free underground scene and was an important voice in Hungary’s art world from the very beginning. Thanks to various techniques such as mapping, video and immersion, they create projects that are far more than mere light objects. Tamás Zádor (media artist) and Márton Noll (architect and media artist) experienced the events of ’89 as children aged 8 and 11. They developed WE ARE especially for the Leipzig Festival of Lights.
Local cooperation partners
Archives in Leipzig and Halle, as well as the Polish Institute Leipzig, opened their doors for the project, enabling conversations with eyewitnesses, city tours following the traces of 1989 and a creative workshop with pupils. “There are many parallels between the events in Leipzig and those in Hungary or Eastern Europe, not necessarily in our own personal stories, but in those of our friends and families. Experiencing this while working in the archives, with the pupils and the eyewitnesses is essential for WE ARE,” the artist team explains.
- Archiv Bürgerbewegung Leipzig e. V.
- Gerda Taro School Leipzig, Grammar School of the City of Leipzig
- Polish Institute Berlin, Leipzig Branch
- Zeit-Geschichte(n) e. V. – Association for Lived History Halle