Earth
2004
A 2,5 m 4000 w Air star Lunix lamp, 8 wires, helium, cover with a motive of the earth.
diameter: 2.5 m.

Floating installation hovering 40m above Gl. Torv (square in the old city centre) in Copenhagen – as part of the public art exhibition MONUMENT 29. May - 18. July 2004. Consisting of:

This installation was constructed of a huge round lamp (2,5 m in diameter) filled with helium, hovering about 40 m. above and old square, Gl.Torv, in the old centre of Copenhagen. To make it look like the EARTH I had made a cover on which I painted the motive of the earth as it would look seen from out of space. The EARTH was only visible when it was dark. During the day I took down the EARTH and attached it behind a roof invisible for people on the ground.

My intention was to create an immediate and short illusion of a planet similar to our earth hovering in space somewhere in our solar system close to our own earth – so that you for a short moment would have the feeling of standing on the earth looking at the earth. The installation was close to Copenhagen’s main pedestrian street, and during the summer a lot of people are walking there during the night. When observing people walking by, the installation seemed to have that surprise effect on people. Several stopped pointing and looking at the EARTH.

On a deeper level, my intention was to create a poetic and almost absurd space for reflection. The double earth literally makes you reflect on yourself from another perspective, as well as it could lead to thoughts about one’s place and role in the world as such.
The doubleness inhabited in the work could also lead to more philosophic and astronomic association about the earths relation and position in relation to the universe, as well as stargates and parallel worlds on the other side of the universe.

An obvious reference and inspiration to this work is the Italian artist Piero Manzoni´s work Socle du Monde, in which he in an autonomous and humorous way claims the centre of the world to be relative and local. I see EARTH in extension to this discussion.

Thematically I also view my installation as a continuation of some of my latest works: Parallel Stairs, Wishing Chair and Infinity + 1, where I am working with the vertical direction/movement and the sky as a space for religious and philosophical questions.