HABITAT 2021
Elisabeth Fiedler

On Christmas Eve 1968, as the astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission were gazing out at ashen rubble, dust and craters during their fourth orbit of the moon, the Earth suddenly rose into view with a surreal beauty. Following this first experience of looking at the planet from space, as captured in his Earthrise photo, William Anders gave his view of the mission: “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.“ 1) That felt realisation of the smallness and embeddedness of man in an infinite expanse, but also the fragility and vulnerability of the just 12km thick, delicate and very complex lower layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, our HABITAT 2), which keeps us alive, brought with it the dawn of global eco-consciousness and the environmentalist movement. The “most influential environmental photograph ever taken” 3), inscribed in our collective memory, and the importance of our actions towards the world and life have never been clearer in their poignancy as they are today. In approaching this universally charged subject, Bernhard Wolf searches for the most memorable, reduced, widely visible language of form to reach all of us. He draws plain circles by hand over the whole of the Landtorrampe access road as schematic representations of planets in the solar system. The current average surface temperatures on the Sun, Earth and Uranus illustrate discrepant and at the same time subtly interacting status images as striking, widely visible and comprehensible signs, icons, logos.

The access road up the Landtorberg, as an informal landmark of Judenburg with its striking planetarium, links the lower town with the historic old town. As a junction of major trade routes, the town of Judenburg exemplifies networking and holds the highest Austrian and European awards for energy efficiency and climate protection.

Dr. Elisabeth Fiedler
Cheief Curator Art in Public Space Styria, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Director Austrian Sculpture Park

1 Tobias Jochheim: “Earthrise”. The photo that changed everything, 26th December 2018, 21:33, https://rp-online.de/panorama/wissen/das-foto-das-alles-aenderte_ aid-35331684, p. 4.

2 See CRITICAL ZONES, The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, ed. Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel, ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany & The MIT Press Cambridge, MA/London, England, Karlsruhe 2020.

3 www.abc.net.au/science/moon/earthrise.htm