Schiffshebewerk Henrichenburg

For Schiffshebewerk Henrichenburg in Waltrop, artist and designer Cristina Tarquini is developing a video and sound installation that will be presented in the ship’s lift machine hall. Navigating through time addresses the infrastructural adaptations of water transportation routes and means in a globalizing world. Tarquini draws on scientific datasets for her work and translates them into fluid images of animated point clouds.

For her video installation in the ship lift, Cristina Tarquini uses selected data sets on global container shipping and water research to develop an audiovisual narrative. Her work shows the connection between major overseas ports, addresses the increase in freight transport on the oceans, and visualizes data sets from the German Federal Institute of Hydrology, which research the consequences of extreme weather events for the Rhine and Rhine-Herne Canal. Logistical, economic, and ecological themes can thus be experienced in the ship lift through artistic means.

Students of 3D animation and dramaturgy at the Academy of Media Arts (Kunsthochschule für Medien - KHM) in Cologne are transforming the facade at the headwaters of Schiffshebewerks Henrichenburg into a space of artistic speculation and reflection. The front of the two stone towers and the steel truss construction of the old lift form the surface for a jointly developed projection by the art and film students, which critically examines the paradigm of progress of industrial modernism.

Once a political prestige project of the German Empire and a logistically indispensable hub, the ship lift stood for Prussia’s economic strength and future, representing economic and political power. Control over logistics networks, whether for physical goods or digital data traffic, is of immense importance now more than ever. The students of the KHM are tackling the connection between infrastructure, logistics, and power and translating their artistic examination into an immersive projection mapping. Further works by the students will be on display in the hold of the museum ship “Ostara”.