The Swiss pavilion confronted visitors with Switzerland’s waterscape and its history. The key themes examined were ecological changes in Switzerland’s lakes and rivers as well as national and international efforts to conserve them and keep them clean. Switzerland’s valuable technical know-how regarding water conservation was presented, as were innovative international projects to keep its waters clean.

The foyer

A map in the foyer presented Switzerland’s dense network of lakes and rivers. A few introductory sentences outlined water’s importance as a raw material, discussed the water reserves Switzerland shares with other countries and demonstrated the responsibility existing towards those who rely on those reserves for their water supply.

Projection on the curved sail

The exhibition’s central feature was a huge downward-curving sail (18 x 11 m) that served as a projection surface for a video by the artist Max Philipp Schmid. Thanks to its unconventional hanging, the sail formed an elongated vertical line that – depending on whether visitors stood beneath it or on the upper level – either hung about their heads or extended beneath them. The changing video images caused the sail to take on different motifs and functions: it became a lake-bed, a bathtub, a valley. The mood changed from “pleasantly interesting to “exciting” to “disturbing” and even to “threatening” and back again. A man moved about in the water, his body and skin reacting differently depending on the water quality, which gave rise to changes of mood. Visitors thus became aware of water’s different qualities and characteristics, developing a feeling for its ambivalent potential, even though that potential was not as a general rule directly visible in the water. Underneath the sail, visitors could rest on “amoebae” (loungers and seats that were made from tractor tubes).

Energy-efficient cooling system

An intensive sound effect was created in the room by the drops of water that were constantly falling on the sail. Those drops of water also helped to cool the room for, together with the sail, they were components of an energy-saving cooling system that not only served to communicate water’s functions in our economy but that, like the projected images, was directly experienced.

Interactive ‘Wall of Water’

After having been emotionally sensitised by the sail installation to the characteristics, unpredictability and potential of the element of water, visitors arrived at the second section of the exhibition: an abstract Swiss waterscape. Using images and texts, this section provided information about the problems faced by Switzerland’s eco-system, measures to restore ecological equilibrium and the water conservation programs already implemented at national and international level. “Rivers” in the form of transparent tubes ran from a water tank placed below the ceiling to light boxes along the tubes’ path. In the light boxes the water collected. The boxes were marked with symbols representing possible sources of water problems: (e.g. a rain cloud for flooding, a motor boat for environmentally harmful leisure activities and a roll of toilet paper for household effluent).
If visitors pulled the chain on the light boxes, the “sluice” opened, the “cleansed“ water flowed out along the tube below and the light box lit up so that a picture and a text became visible. These provided information about how to solve the problem. Visitors could obtain fresh drinking water from the lower water tanks (which represented the three international lakes, Lago Maggiore, Lake Constance and Lake Geneva). The water taps were marked with abbreviations indicating the names of the countries that share the waters of the lake concerned, for example I and CH on the Lago Maggiore tank. Through the exhibition’s various components, Switzerland presented itself as an innovative, energy-conscious country actively committed to improvements in environmental technology.

Accompanying media

On leaving the pavilion every visitor received a poster showing a still from the exhibition video. Texts and a board game based on the contents of the Wall of Water were printed on the back of the poster. The Internet site for the Swiss pavilion included a virtual exhibition tour designed by iart, which was realised by Claudiabasel under iart’s direction.

Project description for download

Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain — Swiss Pavilion ‘Under the Lake’,
www.swissworld.es
www.expozaragoza2008.es
Temporary exhibition, Duration: 14 June to 14 September 2008

Client / Customer
Presence Switzerland

Services iart
Exhibition content, design, concept and planning of media,
lighting, engineering, printing, concept for webpage

Media and Content
Video projection on curved sail ‘Under the Lake’
Interactive light box installation ‘Wall of Water’
Lighting
Event technology

Project Partners
Nüssli Schweiz AG, Building
VisionAir AG und Waldhauser Haustechnik AG, Cooling system
tegoro solutions ag, Installation, technical implementation
Max Philipp Schmid, Video
Paola De Michiel, Uniforms
Sabine Leuthold und Jacqueline Laliv, Furniture
Claudiabasel, Realisation webpage

Exhibition Area
500 m2

Visitors in front of the Swiss Pavilion

Projection ‘Under the Lake’ on curved sail

Visitors in front of the ‘Wall of Water’

Poster with game about ‘Water and sustainable development’

Project Schweizer Pavillon Expo Zaragoza 2008

Project description for download

Paul Scherrer Institute Villingen — Interactive Sphere
Visitors’ centre ‘psi forum’
Permanent exhibition, Opening: January 2008

Customer
Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen

Services iart
Concept, planning and realisation of the installation and its content

Media
Interactive sphere with animations

Content
Films, texts, pictures, animations, ambient sound, video takes with actors

Project Duration
9 months

Exhibition Area
30 m2

The sphere can be rotated in every direction. Sensors affect the presentation of content in real time.

The sphere with photos and films on the theme ‘Natural Hazards’.

Project description for download

On a Delicate Mission — Temporary Exhibition at the Swiss National Museum Zurich
Website of the exhibition
Temporary exhibition, Duration: 16/5/2007 — 16/9/2007

Client
Swiss National Museum, Zurich

Customer
Holzer Kobler Architekturen GmbH, Zurich

Services iart
Concept, planning and realisation of lighting, projection and ambient sound of the exhibition
Preparation and animation of the projection

Media
High definition projection on a table with objects, realised with three projectors
Surround Sound of the table

Content
Film of the dinner and the corresponding sound design

Project Partners
Holzer Kobler Architekturen GmbH, Zurich, Exhibition design
Reinhard Pelger, Production manager, director
Haimo Ganz, Chef

Project Duration
3 months

Exhibition Area
700 m2

Test setting in the iart studio.

Video take in the studio.

A small ferry took visitors to Jean Nouvel’s Cube in the middle of Lake Murten. On the ground floor of the three-storey pavilion, they first came across a curved 360° screen onto which a precisely choreographed succession of images was projected in an alternating rhythm: the 360° panorama ‘Switzerland Version 2.1’ that took them on a journey through Switzerland’s history, geography, tales and myths.

On the second floor a restored historic panoramic painting from the year 1894 represented the Battle of Murten in 1476. From the top floor visitors could see the real panorama of Murten’s natural surroundings.

The panorama ‘Switzerland Version 2.1′ was compiled by a group of artists from a huge stock of pictures of Switzerland. Famous, stereotypic pictures were used as well as less familiar ones and even some that were totally unknown: their own photos, media pictures and loans from other collections. The pictures were painstakingly digitalised, processed, modified and combined into a series of images that succeeded one another calmly with occasional bursts of a faster rhythm.

While the historical panorama on the second floor attempted to communicate closeness to reality at the same time as an optical illusion, the central objective of the group ‘Panorama2000’ was to dispel clichés through modifications and new juxtapositions, hence evoking new associations with the theme of Switzerland. Visitors were intended to find their own image of Switzerland again or to be able to reinvent it. With images taken from the public and the private sphere, the artists explored notions such as reality, identity, belonging and homeland.

The images, which were projected onto the 360° wall by 24 computer-controlled projectors, were repeated in a thirty minute cycle. Viewers did not have a fixed vantage point in front of the panorama. They advanced through the room along ramps arranged in the form of a double helix, moving first up and then down, without changing direction or meeting anyone. Visitors’ perspective and their distance from the panorama were therefore continuously changing.

Project description for download

Expo.02 Arteplage Murten — 360°-Projection
Temporary exhibition: 15 May to 20 October 2002

Customer
Expo.02, 6th Swiss Expo

Services iart
Concept, planning and realisation of the 360° projection

Media
360° Projection, realised by 10 projectors controlled by computers

Content
2000 photographs

Project Partners
Group Panorama2000: Ursula Freiburghaus, Christoph van den Berg, Monica Studer, Claudia Müller, Julia Müller, Andreas Reuter, Dominique Salathé, Valentin Spiess, Volker Trommsdorff, Emanuel Tschumi

Project Duration
6 months

Exhibition Area
700 m2

The ‘Monolit’ by Jean Nouvel on the Murten Lake war reachable by boat.

The pictures continuously changed.

Rows of pictures projected onto the 360° sceen by 24 beamers.

Room Performances
Grube Messel Visitors’ Center – 360° projection
Swiss Pavilion Expo Shanghai 2010 – Large scale projection
Swiss Pavilion Expo Zaragoza 2008 – Sail projection ‘Unter dem See’
Literaturmuseum der Moderne Marbach – Interactive wall projection
Mercedes-Benz Museum – Moving lift projections ‘Zeitreise’ and moving projection on chain curtain
Museum of Communication Bern – Mirror projection, wall projections
Expo.02 Arteplage Murten – 360° projection
Theater Basel – Video scenography ‘in vain’ by Olaf Nicolai

Model Projections
Zukunftsplanet Erde – Interactive Sphere
Swiss Pavilion Expo Zaragoza 2008 – Sail projection ‘Unter dem See’
Swiss National Museum, ‘In heikler Mission’, Diplomate Dinner – Projection on decked table
Infocenter Zürich West – City model projection
Expo.02 Arteplage Murten – 360° projection

Magic Projections
Interactive Cloud
Arche Nebra – Pepper’s Ghost
Museum für Kommunikation Bern – Virtual people, Magic blackbox