*oh giovanni. grateful & pleased that mediaapparat commissioned me with this project for the strauss new dimensions museum. a multidimensional museum & audiovisual walk through the life of johann strauss son. the museum is based across secession & opened in november 2024. living in vienna, i am more than happy to get to know a glimpse of ‘more’ about the famous king of waltz. this will not enhance my skills in dancing the traditional dance, anyway in 1, 2 & 3 – finding the clef – i was very happy for the challenge to work on a multilayered static light installation. as it is one of the objects in the exhibition not in movement without animation & moving image content i was cheerfully playing with the old traditions of staging light & focusing on the movement of the person beholding the object. everything is always nice if the existing base is a lovely cd & a profound researched imagery. furthermore there existed a detailed concept of the installation architecture itself. so my starting point was in dur. so telling the story of the international success of strauss in layers was playful & fun, an ostrich is taking you on the journey & the blue danube lines came out as optometric test, take your old suitcases & jump a major third into the concert travels of ‘schani’ so if you wan’t to have a belle vue from the paris world expo in 1867 or some impressions of what happened at the boston peace jubilée 1872 don’t get sea sick by the optical illusions & don’t forget to get some strauss merch, neckties, hats & stockings are en vogue & timeless still. if horn signals appear the curtain rises for tableau. as the whole installation is based on the shape of convex slices building an circle, i thought about the idea that you can find something new any time you revolve it. i like to hide details in detail, as for every act & section in the museum there is some audio reacting on the position of the visitors, it was also tricky to place the content related to the audio. so synergy between information, audio & the visual was one of the tasks to tackle. i like adventures & challenges & i like to be a captain on my little ship joining a bigger ship, tasking my self with the unknown until i know at least better. thanks to mediaapparat for the trust, the art direction, the exhibition architect & project management & congrats to the team for making this extensive exhibition an experience by putting lots of effort in each act. i enjoyed my first waltz through – i enjoyed this collaboration. i also did a second little station in the stairway – you can find it here. ♥︎
client | ostrich eventagentur gmbH
agency | mediaapparat
ceo | andreas göltl | jodok boehm
art direction & cd | lena walch
project management | victoria perner
exhibition architect | christian sturminger
