MORE LIGHT!

It was all over the press yesterday: CEBIT, Germany's largest trade fair for information technology, has been cancelled. How can that be?

You could always be sure of seeing something new, something unexpected, something fascinating. How can it be that such a trade fair no longer functions in the land of engineers and inventors?

The trade fair organisers blame dwindling visitor numbers. Perhaps it is because computers can do so much nowadays and we are increasingly overwhelmed by their operation that we generally only utilise a maximum of 5% of the possibilities offered by our computers. Or that we sometimes feel downright at the mercy of the machine when it doesn't do what it's supposed to - often just before an important deadline - and mutates into an hourly grave.

Or perhaps we are tired of computers, perhaps we have a kind of technology fatigue, a weariness, because we seem to have lost the human touch, the individuality.

Tonight we welcome an artist to the gallery whose art manages to unite the disparate and make the contradictions of modern life usable:

Hans Kotter builds illuminated objects and sculptures from stainless steel, Plexiglas and hundreds of LEDs. These are precision devices, meticulously planned, built to the millimetre, manufactured using the latest processing techniques, which make highly polished stainless steel possible, for example, and equipped with a mini-computer that controls the processes inside.

And here's the thing: these objects and sculptures made of technology make you happy! Hans Kotter's art does not hide its technical character and yet we can love it. We are fascinated by the moving lights that draw us into imaginary infinite expanses. Movement always compels our gaze, that is the evolutionary legacy of our origins. And we are curious when we can look into something. Into infinite curves or tunnels, for example. That's the cognitive side.

But the emotional, the subconscious side of our reaction to this art seems even more important to me. Many of Hans Kotter's works emit light. And light is doping for the soul. For so-called winter depression, light therapy is a fast-acting, recognised healing method. Light increases the seratonin level in the body. And serotonin is known to have a mood-enhancing effect, i.e. it makes you happy.

Last night I sat down with the Twins in peace and quiet. It was a bit like sitting by the sea: Waves come in, here made of light, very evenly, but always different. It's relaxing, and at the same time it's captivating because we can't escape the movement of the light. I kept discovering new details of the work and meditated a little at the same time, it was marvellous!

And it is precisely this state of alert rapture that Hans Kotter is concerned with in his work. The artist says of himself: "I paint with the computer like others paint with a brush." He always has a very precise idea of what effect his light art should have, what the work itself should look like, what spaces he wants to open up in the work. At the same time, he knows exactly what effect the work should have in the surrounding space. Hans Kotter knows how to give his works a very real aura, which then enchants the room. And if you find the constantly changing colours too intense, you can also stop the gradients, perhaps creating a cool aura in summer and a warm one in winter.

Hans Kotter sketches his idea of light on paper. He then programs the controls for hundreds of LEDs on the computer in long sessions - depending on the complexity of the shapes and colours. With the help of mirrors at precisely calculated installation angles, he then creates the fascinating mini-cosmos that his works often depict.

For me, Hans Kotter creates the light art of the 21st century. He ties in with the traditions of the ZERO Group and the Op Art of Victor Vaserely, for example. He utilises all technical innovations, especially in the field of light sources and software, but he doesn't do this for the sake of mere gimmickry. Rather, he wants to show us what happens when we see, when we see light. That which is so existential that we no longer even notice it.

This can also be seen very clearly in his photographic works. Hans Kotter has photographed precisely what we always see without realising it, LIGHT. As you probably know, the daylight we perceive as white is a mixture of electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths. Do you remember the simple prisms from physics lessons, where white light fell in on one side and came out on the other as a rainbow? Hans Kotter uses a combination of specially manufactured glass prisms to create very special light refractions and effects. These are then photographed as ultra-high-resolution macros and this is what you see in the photos. Motifs of almost unearthly colour brilliance and beauty, close enough to touch and yet unattainable - LIGHT.

Ladies and gentlemen, the artist is present - take this opportunity to ask him anything you want to know about his art and about LIGHT. We now have days when it is pitch dark for 14 hours a day - MORE LIGHT seems to me to be the right answer.

In our new catalogue you will find a wide range of Hans Kotter's work, feel free to take a look.

I wish you an illuminated evening!

Dr Kathrin Reeckmann