In 2005, LIA was commissioned by the media studio ART+COM to create a site-specific work for the Vattenfall Media Facade in Berlin-Mitte.
The piece, Chaturanga, was presented on a 100-square-meter facade comprised of 18 screens arranged in a complex vertical and horizontal layout. Created for the ‘Long Night of Museums’, the work addresses the theme of “War and Peace” through abstract minimalism.
The animation visualizes a strategic clash between black and white forms – referencing the Indian ancestor of chess – where two opposing forces constantly overwrite and erase one another in a loop of equal intensity.
Chaturanga installed on the vertical facade screens, Berlin (2005).
Street view of the installation.
The Composition
Chaturanga is certainly a “made to measure” piece, with the emphasis on “measure”, because with a total of 18 screens arranged in two complementary compositions, this is a canvas of unusual proportions and resources.
Not only the numbers are big here, but the scale of the projections is indeed something uncommon. In the outer piece, 5 screens are arranged vertically, composing a single animation where two forces of equal energy clash with each other, forcing their opposite up or down, fighting for their space inside the canvas. On this fight there is never a winner or a looser, as territory is permanently gained or lost, images are destroyed and rebuilt as each of the elements leaves its imprint in the screen while erasing the other’s.
Choosing black and white as the colors to represent these two opposite poles evoques the symbolic clash in the game of chess, not the war then, but the representation of war, the battle made abstract.
Text by Miguel Carvalhais
Project Details
Year Created: 2005
Medium: Generative Video for Facade Projection (18 screens)
Commission & Exhibition
Vattenfall Media Facade, Berlin, Germany (‘Long Night of Museums’, Aug 27, 2005)
Commissioned by: ART+COM
Photography: Marius Watz
Exhibited alongside: Marius Watz, Andre Stubbe, Markus Lerner.
