01 / Experience
Following the first light around the Earth.
Global Sunrise traces the moment when a forest begins to wake. Individual animal calls emerge, overlap and grow into a dawn chorus, carrying the listener between ecosystems and continents.
Created for the exhibition Mythos Wald at Gasometer Oberhausen, the installation brings field recordings, light and a specially constructed interior into a shared experience. The journey moves between the forests of Müritz, the Americas, Australia, Japan and Africa, following sunrise as it continues around the planet.
- Year
- 2025–26
- Location
- Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany
- My contribution
- Artistic concept, Technical lead, planning, production coordination and on-site installation
- Homepage contribution summary
- Artistic concept & technical direction
- Artistic authorship
- Chris Watson (sound), Visual: Theresa Baumgartner, Verena Bachl & Karsten Schuhl
- Commissioner
- Gasometer Oberhausen GmbH
- Context
- Commission / studio collaboration · Exhibition: March–November 2026
The listening space illuminated beneath the suspended material landscape. Photograph: Michael Krautter.
02 / My contribution
Artistic concept and technical realisation.
I contributed to the artistic concept of the light installation with Theresa Baumgartner and Verena Bachl, alongside technical leadership, planning, production coordination and on-site installation.
The collaboration connects several distinct practices: Chris Watson’s sound recording and composition; Tony Myatt’s additional recordings and spatial sound engineering; and the visual and material development of the interior. OCEANS21 produced the project for the Gasometer Oberhausen.
A major construction challenge was acoustically isolating the installation from the surrounding exhibition hall. The planning and acoustic documents show the level of detail needed to communicate a solution across the design and construction team.
Concept
Light installation with Theresa Baumgartner and Verena Bachl.
Development
Technical planning, prototypes, custom parametric production software and production coordination.
Site
Installation and integration within the existing space.
03 / Material studies
Testing what a surface does to light.
The process began at the scale of material samples. Folded and deformed metal surfaces were compared under light, investigating how a small change in geometry could alter shadow, reflection and the impression of depth.
These studies place the physical material alongside the lighting rather than treating it as a neutral background. Their uneven surfaces become part of how light is distributed and experienced.
Early comparisons of cut patterns. Photograph: Verena Bachl.
Further material and surface studies. Photograph: Verena Bachl.
A small-scale light and surface experiment. Photograph: Theresa Baumgartner.
A material and deformation study. Photograph: Verena Bachl.
04 / Development
Scaling a material experiment into a room.
The section drawing translates the suspended surface into construction information, locating it in relation to the ceiling and the people beneath it. The fabrication photographs show the shift from small samples to larger custom sheets and assemblies.
On site, the work moved through non-destructive installation at a historic preservation site, the suspended material elements, and lighting tests. This progression makes the relationship between experimentation and production visible.
Section study for a suspended sheet-metal element.
Preparing the larger metal-surface assembly.
Non-destructive suspension system for the historic gas pressure plate.
A lighting test during installation.
05 / Operation
Designed for daily use by museum staff.
System integration had to make the installation straightforward for museum staff to run without the project team’s supervision. The work was therefore not complete when the light and sound systems could operate individually: they also had to function as a usable whole.
I developed custom software and specific operating instructions to support that daily use. This connected the technical integration to the people responsible for opening, running and looking after the installation.
06 / Listening
A landscape composed from living sound.
The sound journey includes birds, insects and mammals, from nightingales and lyrebirds to howler monkeys and lions. The composition draws attention to both individual voices and the acoustic character of each habitat.
The finished installation holds this journey within a physical environment of light and material. Sound supplies the changing geography while the surrounding space shapes the conditions for listening.
The suspended ceiling elements within the completed interior before the final presentation.
The finished installation during the light and sound composition. Photograph: Michael Krautter.
Related projects & further reading
Blue and violet light mimicking aspects of the sunrise. Photograph: Michael Krautter.