Festival and Exhibition: Über Lebenskunst (Survival Art)
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the World’s Cultures)
Berlin (D), August 2011
93 Million Miles Away …
Franz John with Michael Rodemer
93 Million Miles Away … was the title of an artistic pilot project that used electroluminescent light wires and generated the required energy, following the basic principle of photosynthesis, via color-pigmented Grätzel cells(1). The almost unimaginable distance to the Sun (150 million kilometres) should be symbolized within this project as well as the inherent energy flows in the light, which travel as high-frequency electromagnetic rays in just 8 minutes to Earth, where they keep a power plant smoothly functioning since millions of years via the natural plant dye chlorophyll. The project of the two artists was shown during the international exhibition Über Lebenskunst – an initiative project for culture & sustainability – at the Berlin House of the World’s Cultures and during the Long Night of Sciences at the Helmholtz Campus in Berlin-Wannsee. The project was the result of a long-term collaboration between Franz John and the American artist Michael Rodemer and was one of 14 jury selected creative initiatives and art projects funded by the German Kulturstiftung des Bundes.