19.03.2008
Season 2008: Genius I. The Mission: discover research invent
Genius I. The Mission: discover research invent
Until 30th March in the world’s most unique blast hall: the experience project at the World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks: both exhibition and journey of discovery in one
The experience project “Genius I. The Mission: discover research invent” until March 30
th 2008 in the world’s most unique Blast hall has as its themes innovation and creativity, the primordial drive of the human’s will to live and human culture. The project is simultaneously an exhibition and journey of discovery. It takes the visitor on a mission whose task is to live and experience the genius of the many and versatile contributions to the development of our civilization and culture.
At the Genius Stations three universal genii Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander von Humboldt und Albert Einstein are featured, the gallery of inventions and inventors range from the hand axe to the mp3 player and seven theme worlds. In “Genius backstage” visitors can have a thrilling insight into exhibits such as the pianola from Vienna, an example of Leonardo da Vinci’s design for a parachute or the Geislautern steam locomotive. The tour is included in the admission price!
The art project “MISSION ETERNITY” of the Swiss artists association etoy is also docked into Genius I. For children between five and ten it offers a quite special artistic experience.
Since antiquity genius has been a term denoting the creativity and innovation of humans, the motor of the world, the drive of progress of an almost divine power. At the beginning of the 21
st century, in another world premiere the World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks presents with “Genius I. The Mission: discover research invent”® precisely this genius a contemporary form. At a point in time when the genius in central Europe threatens to be lost.
A newly installed viewing platform five meters above the 100-year-old dinosaur-like machines of the Blast hall permits not just a new view of the world’s most unique machine world of the Blast hall of the World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks, but in its 3000 m2 of comprehensive installations one has a “flash” of the desires, dreams and longings inherent in the drive of humans and their inventions. The large installation displays spectacular large scale photographs of the as yet unspoilt Amazon area, which mediate an impression of a contented paradise, the very longing of genius.
With the invention of the wheel, a wooden disc of 4000 BC the whole progression of breathtaking technological inventions of humanity. From the beginning of the industrial age the speed at which new inventions come into being has enormously accelerated. These inventions have brought and bestowed upon the people of central Europe a world of technological potentials they can use and experience far beyond the most audacious fantasies preceding them. These new potentials are bound together with a general prosperity, which until that point was unimaginable and from this point of view truly is breathtaking.
To exemplify this exhibits of a family of the 21st century are displayed: how many clothes does a family wear of a normal “Otto” consumer in the course of a life, how many tablets do mother, father and two children take, how high is the pile of newspapers and magazines in the course of the life of a family, wouldn’t one dispose of them in a paper dumpster?
The visible results of the life of a family at the beginning of the 21
st century dramatically opens with the equipment and consumer wares of an average family an unimaginable abundance of material goods which are ultimately created as a result of the remarkable genius of invention. Consumer articles far in excess of 100000 are left by a family at the end of the 21
st century compared to the amount left by a family of 150 years before the turn of the millennium. For the first time for “Genius I.” this family consumer balance is researched in fine detail and evaluated. In “Genius I.” the family is presented and the quantity of material used in the consumer goods specified.
“Genius I.” and the World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks are only at first glance a contradiction. The World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks is even today – 20 years after the hot metal phase – still a globally leading site of innovations. The one time Röchling’schen iron and steel works in Völklingen and its legal successor are and were, in the field of iron foundry patents, one of the most innovative industrial enterprises in Europe. Thus Genius I. The Mission: discover research invent® has the most appropriate and innovative stage upon which to set its experience and adventure project.
Genius I will definitively close its doors on Sunday 30th March, 2008. After which on the roof of the blast hall a modern photovoltaic plant will be installed (expected to be ready by winter 2008/Spring 2009). To reduce the nuisance factor for visitors to the World Cultural Heritage Site Völklinger Ironworks to minimum, no large exhibitions will take place in the Blast hall during that period. However, the two legendary bellow machines, 9 and 10, in the Blast hall will remain accessible to visitors!
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