Lucky Ember 2022 HD 12 min Video / Illustrations / Event

In a German industrial greenhouse, ultraviolet LED lamps were introduced to maximize the photosynthesis potential, compensating for the lack of sunlight. Each day when the sun rises and falls, a security guard opens and closes the blinds to keep the place's inner light inside. However, the project opens up the shields to allow celestial projection of the light as an inversion of the greenhouse (a)effect.

The Ultraviolet rays were discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter, a physicist and romantic philosopher. Therefore it was, from the very beginning, described as a force of nature, an invisible yet powerful energy. Nowadays, UV light has become ubiquitous in the mass production of agricultural crops. That said, the film extracts elements from both the image of UV light as a sublime force and its integration into late-capitalist production. Combining images of the actual greenhouse with metaphorical representations of the greenhouse effect theory, known as the overheating of the atmosphere, involves giving the film’s visual surface a translation of the solar radiation spectrum.

The greenhouse is a climate-controlled space that offers an aesthetic experience of nature. The traditional orientalist display of exotic plants, since the Crystal Palace, embarked on the romantic image of earth. The greenhouse is also one of the cinema's first spaces. At the end of the nineteenth century, when George Méliès built the first-ever film studio, movie lamps were unavailable. Méliès utilized the sunlight in a unique architectural endeavour. The glass Montreuil Studio is where VFX fiction was pioneered, with dozens of magical films.

With participation of: Cino Djavid , Axel Gottschick, Elisabeth von Bodnarovicz conte, Hila Gluskinos, Alisa Berger Malte Fröhlich | Production team: Sophia Gröning, Walter solon, Andreas Niegl, Uwe Huth und Jascha Sommer | Cinematography: Bela Usabaev | Sound design: Yuval Goren | Set design: Julia Konig and Emil Adam | Costumes: Anna Muggia

German Autumn 2018. An event was set to celebrate a unique projection of UV light to the night sky. Residents of the area, mostly employees at Grevenbroich’s power plants, marvelled at the pink sky as a subliminal site, a spectacular image of Carboncapitalism in the backdrop of the Hambach Forest environmental protest. We drank gluhwein and documented the light phenomenon with our private cellphones, viewing the light as an addition to the industrial landscape. 

Press links (DE) :

NGZ Online: In den Tomatengewächshäusern wird jetzt ein Film gedreht  

Westdeutsche Zeitung:Gewächshaus lässt Himmel glühen

NGZ Online: Ein Film über das rot-leuchtende „Wunder von Neurath“

EXPRESS: Was ist das? Westlich von Köln, 4 Uhr nachts: Rätsel um mysteriöse lila Wolke gelöst 

NGZ Online: „Tomaten-Glühen“ als Event für alle

BILD: Darum färbte sich der Himmel rosa            

Westdeutsche Zeitung: Mysteriöses Leuchten sorgt für Feuerwehreinsatz