Via Lewandowsky: Fernsehen / Alle Wetter

Burgstädt

At night, coloured, irregularly pulsating light can be seen flickering from afar from the upper room of the dark Taurastein Tower, which was built in 1912 as a lookout and water tower in Burgstädt. The flickering light from the tower's 16 arched windows was generated by multimedia artist Via Lewandowsky, who was born in Dresden in 1963 and now lives in Berlin, from sequences of feature films and documentaries that can be suggested via the website. Reduced to average values of colour temperature and brightness, at night 16 LED lamps emit a medial weather glow across the treetops of the Wettin Grove that is detached from the filmic narrative. During the day, the light installation is transformed by a sound collage. A four-digit numerical code, which is randomly generated on a display above the entrance to the tower, conveys a mysterious message to visitors as they enter the tower. The climb up the 163 steps into the lantern room is accompanied by coloured light and sounds: Sometimes it grumbles and trickles quietly, sometimes it thunders and cracks loudly. The sounds penetrate from a brick and tiled water tank, which was used as an elevated reservoir until 1996 and is now empty, via eight channels into the 39 metre high tower. The artist recorded and technically modified them underground in the former tin mine of the Ehrenfriedersdorf show mine, one of the oldest mining sites in the Erzgebirge mining region, some 40 kilometres away. They are now reflected in sound above ground at the height of the tower.

Lewandowsky's site-specific and conceptual light-sound installation is itself to be understood as a kind of spatialised film that can be experienced via many channels, levels and paths when entering the tower, climbing the steps, "watching television" from the viewing platform and also when looking at the flickering light at night. Stories and history, places and times of regional and media history are interwoven in such a way that the structure of sound and light creates an almost organic whole that communicates from head to toe and with all the senses of the visiting guests in the elongated body of the Taurasteintum.

(Text: Alexander Ochs / Ulrike Pennewitz)

Via Lewandowsky
Fernsehen (2025)

Exhibition opening Alle Wetter on 21.09., 17:00
duration: 21.09.2025-30.09.2026

In Burgstädt, Taurastein Tower

↗ Aktueller Film auf fernsehen.chemnitz2025.de

Set up with the support of the town of Burgstädt.

Please note: Due to a technical defect, the Taurastein Tower, including the artwork, cannot be visited until further notice.

Tuesday - Sunday, 1 pm-6 pm

Admission to the Taurastein Tower:
2 € / reduced 1 € / children under 6 years free

Further information on the ↗ website

Address:
Taurastein Tower
Am Taurastein 5
09249 Burgstädt

to the location on Google Maps

With the installation Alle Wetter , Via Lewandowsky's intervention at the Taurastein Tower in Burgstädt is being expanded into an immersive experience that can be visited during the day when the tower is open.

The light installation Fernsehen / Wetterleuchten has been visible above the treetops of the Wettin grove at night since April. From a distance, it looks as if someone is watching television high up in the tower - in fact, it is a local and international, participatory "television channel" that gives everyone the opportunity to share personally meaningful films with each other.

With Alle Wetter, the multimedia artist, who was born in Dresden in 1963 and now lives in Berlin, has developed the tower into a Gesamtkunstwerk. Upon entering, visitors are greeted by an enigmatic light panel and the ascent up the 163 steps is accompanied by pulsating sounds and colours. Sometimes it trickles and crackles softly, sometimes it thunders and crashes, it feels as if it is coming from far away and yet your own body also resonates.

The sounds come from the former tin mine of the Ehrenfriedersdorf show mine, around 40 kilometres away, one of the oldest mining sites in the Erzgebirge mining region. Recorded underground and technically alienated, they are reflected upwards in the tower: an echo from the depths that can be experienced anew here at lofty heights.

The Taurastein Tower, built in 1912 as a water and observation tower, has always been more than just a functional building. Strengthened from the outset by civic engagement, it has a special atmosphere with its strangely wide interior spaces and almost maritime feel. Via Lewandowsky takes up this peculiarity, contrasting and exaggerating it at the same time. In this way, the tower (according to Ulrike Pennewitz) becomes a "spatialised film" in which stories and history, light and sound, mountain and sea, personal experience and artistic intervention merge.

All weather wants to be experienced with all the senses, always ready for a friendly, ironic self-reflection - a touching experience that takes in the tower from the foundations to the dome.