INTRO
The audiovisual staging of Bremen’s chamber of trade is an artistic confrontation with the issue of creative industries. In direct reference to its premiere’s occasion, the “Day of Creative Industries”, the work reflects on the complex tension between creativity and economic actions.
While creativity is embodied by four dancers, the building itself, a stony manifestation of Bremen’s hanseatic identity, represents the economy in this play. The building is the Haus Schütting, seat of the Handelskammer, with a facade full of putti, coats of arms and statues.
Key challenges
Making stone an equal protagonist
Fitting climbers to real ornament
Abstract economics as physical action
LUMENTEKTUR
BUNTES GOLD was produced by URBANSCREEN with Lumentektur, the collective's own projection technique, which works the real architecture into the image, graphically and in its themes. It was URBANSCREEN's first large facade projection in its home city of Bremen in about six years; in between, the collective had projected onto the Sydney Opera House, the University of Houston and the Leopold Museum in Vienna (Weser-Kurier).
In three acts, the dancers climb and conquer the building, spreading their visions and ideas on its façade – and at once meet its resistance. The chamber of trade comes to life and springs to action as an equal protagonist. The image of climbing came from Phil Collins’ musical “Tarzan”: to dynamic music, the projected acrobats swing across the ornament.
EIGHT FLAGSHIPS
The commission came out of a competition for Bremen's culture and creative industries, for which the state parliament had invested €700,000 in 2012/13. Of 30 submissions, eight flagship projects were funded, and many hoped the initiative would become a lasting model, the “Bremer Weg”. BUNTES GOLD premiered on 15 November 2013 at the Handelskammer, Bremen, Germany, and ran for three nights until 17 November, repeated through each evening from 7:30 pm. On the opening day, all eight projects were shown in an exhibition with talks inside the building (Senate press office).
CREDITS
Art Director: Thorsten Bauer, Max Görgen, Till Botterweck, Julian Hölscher
Creative Director: Thorsten Bauer
3D Supervisor: Peter Pflug
3D Designer: Moritz Horn
Sound Design and Music: iona w.
Project Manager: Majo Ussat
Performers: Chairs O’Connor, Marta Di Giulio, David Boyd, Patrick Robinson
Casting: Rudi Reschke
Airel Operators: Willem Catianis, Clemens Thomas
Replica Construction: Ole Werner, Armin Jacob
Documentation Director: Moritz Horn
Camera: Moritz Horn
Edit: iona w., Thorbjörn Geisler
Technical Setup & Show Control: Frank Wagner (Wagner Medientechnik)
Project support: Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen GmbH
Special thanks to: Handelskammer Bremen
Production: URBANSCREEN