Indicator für Burg Vischering: model showing the stainless steel linden tree, concealing a cast cuculus indicator bird, water flowing through the weir gate is key to monitoring the installation, 1999.
Indicator für Burg Vischering: aerial view of Burg Vischering.
Indicator für Burg Vischering: drawing from the original proposal made for Skulptur-Biennial 1999 im Münsterland, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster, 1999.
Indicator für Burg Vischering: a Tilia tomentosa made of stainless steel concealing a cast cuculus indicator, water flowing through the weir gate is key to monitoring the installation, 1999.
Indicator für Burg Vischering: proposed species for the cast cuculus indicator.
Indicator für Burg Vischering: view of the castle's rear, where the linden flower pond sings.
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ABOUT INDICATOR FÜR BURG VISCHERING (1999–2001)
Indicator für Burg Vischering is a project intended for the medieval moated castle of Burg Vischering in Lüdinghausen. The site comprises three distinct areas: the first is the wooden footbridge and weir gate parallel to the main entrance. The second is a circular area, approximately one meter in diameter in the receiving pool, and fed with the controlled waters from the two interconnecting moats. The third site is a small isolated pool on the north side of the castle’s moat.
A telescope is positioned on the wooden footbridge, beneath which is a waterwheel operated by the waters flowing through the weir gate. At the second area is a cast of a tree rising from a conical drain, on one branch is a cast honeyguide bird. An enlarged translucent cast of a chirping linden flower floats at in the third area, the flower is fed with water pumped from the second area.
On the wooden footbridge parallel to the entrance a specially constructed telescope is mounted on a structural aluminum I-beam spanning the length of the bridge which will provide stability to the optical apparatus. Directly below this device a stainless steel waterwheel in the shape of a ball is mounted to the face of the weir gate. This waterwheel spins as the water from the castle’s moat exits the weir gate. The waterwheel has two functions: it generates electricity which powers the optical mechanism of the telescope, it also operates a self-priming pump which draws water from the linden tree drain and transports it to the third site.
In the receiving pool is a clear resin cast of a silver linden. (The silver linden, or Tilia tomentosa, was chosen for its mythological associations, it is a blood purifier and a talisman against misfortune. The flowers of the linden tree, although intoxicating to bees, produce a honey unsurpassed in flavor and delicacy. ) This tree would be positioned in a conical funnel functioning as a drain. The drain would act as an internal fountain or void: the linden appearing isolated in a black hole. The water around the drain would become smooth, producing an ideal surface to reflect the image of the tree. A precast concrete ring with an embedded stainless steel tube would be set in the center of the pool, with the tree and funnel then lowered onto the ring. To compensate for fluctuating water levels in the pool a float mechanism ensures the top of the drain is always parallel to the surface of the water. A flexible tube would be attached to the base of the funnel, running along the bottom of the pool to a pump at the side of the pond and then to the third site. In the center of the linden tree is placed a cast of a honeyguide bird, Cuculus indicator. The bird would be life-size, approximately 15 cm high and cast in rhodium; it would be barely discerned to a casual glance.
As visitors to the castle chance upon the telescope and look through its eyepiece, an image of the transparent linden tree, reflected in the water, is visible in a circular frame. The action of the visitor’s eye against the eyepiece activates a pump attached to the waterwheel thus emptying the conical drain. The waters quickly fall away around the trunk causing the tree to appear isolated in a void.
The drawn waters from the drain are transferred to the third site via a tube, where they enter an enlarged clear resin cast of a linden flower. It is only during the telescope’s operational cycle that the water flowing through the flower creates the calling sound of the honeyguide.
After the initial contact with the eyepiece, the lens begins to zoom slowly into the tree and onto the honeyguide; it continues zooming in on the bird, to its head, ending when the honeyguide’s eye fills the frame. Appearing to be reflected onto the surface of the bird’s eye is a magnificent hidden view of the castle. It is not the view one would assume (the vista seen by the bird), but rather the view seen from the third site. This image is superimposed within the telescope’s apparatus by a b/w slide mechanically shifted into the focal plane. By the same method this idyllic black and white image of the castle is slowly faded into a mirror, reflecting the image of the sky, bleaching the ethereal image of Burg Vischering in a brilliant white light. The entire cycle occupies sixty seconds, beginning again as the next viewer puts an eye to the telescope.
The interconnected objects and actions taking place at the three distinct areas transform the castle into a symbolic vascular system. The life-blood of the castle is the carefully regulated waters of the moats. As the water flows, it provides not only the physical material and force required to drive the mechanics but also serves as a transformative medium. The castle has always relied on maintaining a precise level of water in the two interlocking moats, not only to protect the wooden foundations but also against marauding bandits. This passage of water through the final weir gate is the castle’s life-blood, the waterwheel being a monitor of its flow.
The situation of the telescope directly above the waterwheel is not merely a physical proximity. It is the water’s flow that permits the telescope’s operation and also the viewer’s engagement of the eyepiece to activate the water’s metaphorical functions. As the water flows, so the viewer experiences the almost cinematic image through the telescope in a manipulated, albeit real-time, frame.
The telescope is a familiar tool for cultural observation offering improved, if distorted, scrutinies. The telescope addresses the history of the castle; it was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that this instrument changed people’s view of the world and their surroundings. Viewing through a telescope changes reality, both literally and metaphorically. This object serves as both a scientific instrument and a cultural tool; the effect of displacement encountered by the viewer on seeing the ‘wrong’ view of the castle is a intimation of the mutability of perception. That experience of displacement through space and time returns to the viewer when they make the perimetric walk around the castle and encounter the previously projected view.
The honeyguide has an extraordinary habit, as the name implies, of guiding humans (and honey badgers) to bees’ nests by flying back and forth with a chattering call. Humans or badgers led to the gilded site break into the nest for honey, leaving the redundant wax for the honeyguides. This bird has the unusual ability to digest wax; ceraphagous, or wax-eating birds, use special enzymes to break down the wax esters–a quite remarkable example of mutualism. The honeyguide possesses is parasitic, using other birds’ nests to lay their eggs; the cuckoo is perhaps the only other bird up to this trick. Newly hatched honeyguides have a calcareous hook on the tip of their bills that they use to kill their nest mates. The honeyguide bird was chosen as a metaphor for the castle’s precarious security, the honey as a symbol of cultural and physical wealth. The moated castles of Westphalia were constantly being overrun by the knights of Lüdinghausen and other ruffians, aping this familiar trait of the cuculus indicator.
Here the honeyguide serves as an indicator, not to honey but towards a cultural experience or a vista. As the bird produces its calling sound from within the linden flower at the small pond—beckoning the curious to that site—visitors will recognize the view of the castle already viewed through the telescope. Those same visitors regularly explore its inner towers before making the final circular walk around the grounds. Indicator für Burg Vischering uses the same form to create a metaphorical roundelay, both of images as they are presented and of experiences as they are introduced into the spectator’s regular route.
Indicator für Burg Vischering is an ocular investigation of the eye of a cuculus indicator and the mnemonic trace it leaves, presenting through manipulated mythologies a rarefied view of an exquisite site.
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