Tangente (Atacama)object / intervention, Atacama Desert, Chile, 2018inkjet print, diptych, 2020
In an playful attempt to overcome one of life’s most existential and elementary forces, gravitation, Kiessling constructs tangents onto Earth's curvature. Two distant poles are elevated from the ground and precisely aligned to form one single line, a tangent that only touches ground in its very center. A dried out salt lake in the Atacama Desert, Chile, is the ideal condition to build this construction, the artist agues, Its ground surface perfectly reflects Earth‘s curvature. Both tangent-ends were installed 6.49 km apart and at a hight of 82cm above ground. The fact that the area of installment was 3300m a.s.l. was considered, when doing the calculation.
installation view at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2017
TangentFestival of Future Nows, Hamburger Bahnhof, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2017tripods, aluminium poles, 300cm
A tangent is placed onto the curvature of Planet Earth. Two Aluminium poles are placed in distance to each other. Both poles are precisely aligned to form one single line. A perfect tangent only exist in theory. Every plane, every landing strip, even the light, is bending in distance and following the Earth’s curvature. The tangent‘s end in the foyer of Hamburger Bahnhof is the visible part of a much bigger construction, the playful attempt to overcome one of life’s most existential and elementary forces: gravitation.Eine Tangente wird an der Erdkugel angebracht. 2 voneinander entfernt platzierte Aluminiumstangen sind so ausgerichtet, dass sie eine gemeinsame Linie bilden – eine Tangente. Lediglich ihr Mittelpunkt berührt die Erde. Tangenten sind Konstruktionen, die nur theoretisch existieren. Sie sind nicht einfach zu materialisieren. Jedes Rollfeld, jedes Material, selbst das Licht beugt sich der Gravitation, folgt der Krümmung der Erde. Das im Foyer des Hamburger Bahnhofs installierte Tangenten-Ende ist der sichtbare Teil eines spielerischen Versuchs, die Gravitation, eine der elementarsten Kräfte, zu überwinden.
Tangent-end at Neuordnung II, alexander Levy, 2017Installation view by Maja Roettger
Tangent-end in Schöneberg, Berlin
Thank you, Jan Philipp Pade for the mathematical support.
back