93 MILLION MILES AWAY …

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 ...  
93 Million Miles Away ...  
93 Million Miles Away ...  
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93 Million Miles Away ...  
93 Million Miles Away ...  
93 Million Miles Away ...  
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93 Million Miles Away …
Franz John with Michael Rodemer

“Grätzel cell” storing solar energy at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2011.

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.


(1) Dye-operated solar cells, also known as “Grätzel cells” after their inventor Michael Grätzel. The special feature of this particularly sustainable and environmentally friendly technology is that its photosynthe­ti­cally functional components can be obtained from plant pigments – in contrast to the silicon-based con­struc­tion that is prevalent worldwide today.