Time Drifts Cologne II by Philipp Geist January 15 and 16, 2017 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. On the occasion of the furniture fair IMM in Cologne on January 15 and 16, 2017, Philipp Geist will present his comprehensive TIME DRIFTS COLOGNE 2 installation on the Domplatte West in front of the entrance portal of the cathedral and at Roncalliplatz, as well as on two facades of the Domforum, the Roman-Germanic Museum and the Dom-Hotel. Therefore, the successfully implemented Time Drifts Cologne project from New Year's Eve (December 31, 2016) will be repeated during two days at the opening of the IMM due to the great success: Philipp Geist will continue to develop the installation artistically. The installation visualizes the themes of time and space and refers to the wishes, expectations and hopes of the people of Cologne for the new year and the future. Concepts which had been submitted by the inhabitants of Cologne for a few weeks before the event were included in the project. These concepts are now translated into several languages in order to address an international audience. In doing so, the artist renounces
the use of canvases and projects concepts and associations over a large area on the floor surface of the square as well as on the facades of the Domforum and the Roman-Germanic Museum with video mapping installations, and on the Dom-Hotel with large-area static projections and artificially produced theater fog. The result is an interplay between the concrete, tangible projection on the architecture, the accessible floor and the transparent, evanescent projection surface in the fog. Concepts become shortly visible as a metaphor for transience and disappear immediately. The visitors become part of the installation and can access the installation and look at it from different perspectives. Visitors can immerse themselves in the installation and become a projection screen themselves; on the visitors bodies, letters and words can be recognized. Picturesque, abstract, geometric video-mapping installations emerge on the facades. Geist develops a dialog with the place, the concepts, and the architecture and with his artistic work. On the computer, he creates scenic, abstract image worlds which refer to organic microscopic structures. Through its depth and three-dimensionality, the creation symbolizes the ever-widening space of time and, through its complexity and density, represents the complex networks. Geometrical, spatial shapes such as squares, cubes, perforated surfaces, lines and rays are superimposed in a continuous process and build up an overall picture in order to dissolve it in the next moment. The result is a complex image architecture, which is constantly moving, and image compositions, which are partly minimalist-purist, partly vibrantly colorful, dreamlike and schematically fragile. Concepts become visible and immediately transform themselves into the abstraction of an image. The projections in artificially generated fog allow the visitors to access imaginary luminous signs that reflect themselves in the atmosphere above the squares. Words and concepts become briefly visible. Time Drifts Cologne is an "urban intervention", which interprets the "genius loci" of the cathedral environment. The "immersive" installation captivates the viewers and opens up new horizons of experience. The installations are accompanied by ambient sound by Martin Gretschmann alias Console / Acid Pauli, a longtime member of The Notwist. His ambient sound made of the sampled bells of the Cologne Cathedral comment the place also musically and fuses the sound collage and the real
bells, creating a sensual-spherical space experience together with the light installation. Time Drifts Cologne by Philipp Geist Duration of the installation January 15 and 16 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The seemingly fixed ground around the Cologne Cathedral begins to drift gently. A lively and moving experience opens up. In the meantime, the Cologne Cathedral rests as solid as a rock, flooded by the stream of images and visitors to its feet. Philipp Geist's Time Drifts is a wandering light art concept. After stops in Vancouver, Berlin, Montreal, Frankfurt and other places, the Domplatte of Cologne is another highlight of an installation tour around the world.
Philipp Geist (1976) works as an artist with media video / light installation, photography and painting. He has been working on art projects all over the world for 20 years now. Recently, Geist performed a video mapping on the occasion of the Hindu Diwali Light Festival in Pune (India). For the first light festival of Africa in the West African Dakar, he produced the Lightmark at the Dak'art art exhibition. Philipp Geist is the ambassador of the German creative scene participating as a guest of the Goethe Institute and the Foreign Office in different events. For three days, Geist performed a comprehensive video mapping installation with the title Gate of Words about the topics of peace and freedom from October 3-5, 2015, on the Azadi Tower (Freedom Tower) in Tehran, Iran. In 2014 he developed a coherent video installation on the world famous Cristo Redentor statue during the German-Brazilian Year in Rio de Janeiro and projected large-
scale on the Santa Marta favela. On September 30 - October 01, 2014, he performed a light art installation at the German Embassy in Prague on the occasion of the 25 th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. In 2009, he completed an installation at the Grand Palace in Bangkok for over 9 days, which was seen by 2.5 million visitors on site. Philipp Geist mail@videogeist.de www.videogeist.de Studio Philipp Geist / Postfach 080311 / 10003 Berlin photos by Oliver Blum and Philipp Geist Time Drifts Cologne 2017 Philipp Geist / VG Bildkunst Bonn www.videogeist.de