VEKTOR is the latest audiovisual installation by international light artist Christopher Bauder at Kraftwerk Berlin. In his most personal work to date, Bauder fuses kinetic light from 50 moving lasers with a self-composed three dimensional soundscape to create a synaesthetic work of art. Moments and memories from his life are processed into an abstract light art experience. Visitors are submerged in a wondrously fascinating sound and imagescape. With VEKTOR at Kraftwerk Berlin, Bauder is also returning to one of his absolute favourite venues.
After SKALAR and DEEP WEB, VEKTOR is his third monumental installation in this unique industrial cathedral. As a tribute to his fascination with mathematical principles, VEKTOR completes a triptych that Bauder began in 2018 with SKALAR at Kraftwerk and continued in 2023 with the outdoor installation TENSOR in his permanent exhibition DARK MATTER. SKALAR was an emotional journey, TENSOR transported the viewer to an alien world. Now Bauder is returning to himself and showing a large-scale experiment that explores his own world of thoughts and feelings.
For the first time, Bauder has also composed the multi-channel soundtrack to his installation himself. Sound elements are woven into the three-dimensional musical worlds of VEKTOR, recapitulating his previous work and outlining his path into the future. The distant church bells take us back to Bauder’s childhood in the countryside, the sound of the sea takes us to his island of longing and the references to early techno tracks illustrate the nights spent clubbing in the Berlin underground of the late 90s.
The architectural spatial sculptures made of iridescent laser light, which are closely linked to the soundtrack, lead far into an unknown, luminous future. In a previously impossible way, a multitude of light sources moving in space are woven into a single, almost living organism of pure light. Bauder’s lifelong fascination and work with the most diverse types of light culminates here at the limits of human imagination and technical feasibility.
EXHIBITION & PERFORMANCE
The transformative power of VEKTOR can be experienced in two different ways: Exhibition and live performance.
The exhibition runs continuously, without a defined beginning or end. It has a meditative character and invites visitors to dwell indefinitely, to walk around, sit or lie on the floor and remove themselves as far as possible from everyday life and the outside world. The exhibition is a full-body experience that invites visitors to explore the entire space with the installation and the constantly changing flow of light, movement and sound from all sides.
As a special highlight, Christopher Bauder presents a few exclusive VEKTOR live performances together with several guest musicians. In the live shows, Bauder unveils an extended version of the art installation in terms of time and content, which follows a concert-like dramaturgy. Bauder himself is at the controls to modulate both the visual and musical parameters of the installation live.
The live shows have a dramaturgical development in which ambient and beat-driven sections alternate. This is based on a classic concert setting with a defined beginning and end. The close connection between beats, cinematic sound design and performative visuals plays a central role when Christopher Bauder and his fellow musicians interact with light and sound in real time. No two performances are the same.
TICKETS
VEKTOR tickets cost between 10-20 EUR.
OPENING-TIMES
14:00 – 22:00 Tuesday – Thursday
12:00 – 23:00 Friday – Saturday
12:00 – 22:00 Sunday
