LichtStrauss — Opening
March 21, 2025, 5p.m.
Gartenbaukino
Details
LichtStrauss — Guided tours
March 22 - May, 2025
Tickets
LichtStrauss — Augmented Reality
LichtStrauss — Videos
Contributors
Concept & Artistic Direction
Victoria Coeln
Sound Design
Matthias Leboucher
Costume Design
Gerti Rindler-Schantl
Anna F. Schwarz
Isis Flatz
Make-up
Nico Monschein
Camera & Video Editing
Victoria Coeln
Victor Jaschke
Photography
Helmut Prochart
3D Artist
Mimi Schmidl
Augmented Reality
Artificial Museum
Graphic Design
Francesca Centonze
Virtual Performance
Özlem Bulut
Aida Loos
Esra Özmen
Manaho Shimokawa
Helēna Sorokina
Sakina Teyna
Teresa Vogl
Light and the arts have the power to reveal connections between the past and the future. Victoria Coeln merges both media in her unique language, situated at the intersection of the visible and the invisible. In LichtStrauss, she transforms Vienna’s Stadtpark into an intermedia world stage – a walk-in light artwork inspired by courageous women of Strauss’s operettas. The protagonists of this work of art are outstanding women of today who have chosen to appear in public in a very personal and characteristic way. Filmed in Coeln's studio and transformed into virtual personas they inhabit individually created light habitats, called chromotopes. Join us for fascinating intermedia performances and a treasure hunt that raises questions about women's political history and visibility in the public sphere.
The Opening of LichtStrauss will take place on March 21, 2025 at Gartenbaukino and afterwards in Stadtpark.
Inspired by the courageous women from Strauss’ operettas – staged with strong women of our time
Light is the central medium for Victoria Coeln and the foundation of her work in light, film, time, and spatial art. Commissioned by the City of Vienna’s jubilee program “Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna,” she collaborated with a diverse artistic team—music by Matthias Leboucher, 3D objects by Mimi Schmidl, light graphics by Francesca Centonze, and Augmented Reality by Artificial Museum—and with performing artists to create a Gesamtkunstwerk for Vienna aimed at all generations: art for everyone.
“With LichtStrauss, Victoria Coeln succeeds in translating the brilliance of Johann Strauss’ operettas into the present in a fascinating way. Her light and media artwork connects the historical female figures from Strauss’ oeuvre with the voices and expressions of outstanding contemporary women artists. The result is an impressive interplay of light, art, and social reflection. That this work is experienced in public space underscores the festival’s goal: to rethink tradition and build bridges to the future.” — Roland Geyer, Artistic Director of Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna.
“Light, with all its symbolic power for our coexistence, is for me the most precise and exciting medium to interweave spaces, times, and roles in new ways. My light art transforms and overwrites without intervening in the substance, without harming or permanently altering it. Light operates on the smallest and largest scales alike. Through light, I can transfer the chromotopes I developed in the studio for the protagonists into both the real park landscape and virtual spaces, and interconnect them.” — Victoria Coeln
Flowers talk and connect space and time
Heike Sütter, art historian
Specially crafted glass elements project floral motifs, colour fields, and abstract lines onto the noctur-nal landscape, subtly reshaping perception. Coeln's Chromotopes transform the park into a stage for encounters, drawing the viewer's eye and forging new spatial connections. Named by the artist herself, these luminous compositions invite a fresh perspective on space and movement …
