Light Installations for the Beethoven-Year 2020

Nils-R. Schultze and Felix Müller won the light art competition for the 250th birthday of Beethoven.

The idea was to build on Beethoven's musical work and to establish a connection to his hometown of Bonn. The installations symbolize Beethoven's life in Bonn and the way out into the world. The light objects are distributed in the urban space in a way as an exhibition. The audience is invited to walk from installation to installation. The urban space is to be experienced new, new light images are created in the minds of the visitors that will be remembered.

The short days in December, the month of Beethoven's birth, form the stage for our illumination. The pictures from Bonn go out into the world. At the same time it is shown that Beethoven's musical work is present in the world. Our illuminations follow the basic idea, to unite a wide range of different installations into one overall picture in the urban area:

- artwork with a long-distance effect

- Installations related to urban spaces

- sensual experience installations

- experimental objects

- independent light sculptures



for example

- Beethoven's birth room:

The room was rebuilt with 1:1 scale LED-elements and appears twice in Bonn. Exactly at the height of the real birth room. This creates a feeling for the size and height of Bonn houses in the 18th century.

- Disco ball:

A huge disco ball stands in the Hof-garden as a visual sign of the tension between the music of Beethoven and our post-pop. It is a symbol of our time and its club and music culture and transforms the Hofgarten into a large urban experience zone.

- Stadthaus: a large interactive installation

The audience can activate color spots on the floor, which then trigger acoustically different parts from Beethoven's music and a graphic in the corresponding color. Each sound track stands for itself. And when several are activated, they harmonize with each other. The musical implementation was carried out by the composer Sven Helbig, the graphics were created with Kathrin Kreitmeyer. The audience makes music.