INTERVIEW Jennifer Kolb
PUBLISHED 25. FEB 2025
From painting to videography: Gudrun Barenbrock has been developing video installations for 20 years. She photographs and films arrangements and structures, movements and systems. With her camera, she observes natural landscapes as well as urban, organic and industrial, macro and micro contexts. She decolors and overcolors, scales light values and contrasts, examines forms and gradients, adds or removes. This results in digital image fabrics that she shows as large-format projections.
// What motivated you to apply for LICHTROUTEN? Had you heard of Lüdenscheid or the light art festival before?
I was invited by the curators to participate in LICHTROUTEN 2025. This is not the first time my work has been shown in Lüdenscheid. Back in 2009, I realized a video installation for LICHTROUTEN in the attic of the Alte Post.
// Where is your light installation being created, and how do you intend to connect it to the city of Lüdenscheid?
My work will be displayed on the façade of the Sauerland-Center and is specifically designed for this location. The striking building, constructed in the brutalist style of the early 1970s, has been surrounded by controversy from the start. Throughout its long existence, it has never been used as originally intended. Many of its spaces have remained vacant from the beginning, left to decay. A former owner was imprisoned for tax evasion and bribery. Bankruptcy, fraud, sham transactions, failed deals—this building’s history is utterly bizarre, a continuous disaster. Today, only a gambling hall and the parking garage remain publicly accessible; everything else is hidden from view.
By creating an artistic intervention at this “non-place”—including recent imagery from Lüdenscheid—my work inevitably forms a connection with the city. The building itself does not disappear through my intervention; on the contrary, by becoming the canvas for my films, it draws all attention to itself.
// What is your concept for the light installation, and how do you approach its creation?
The Sauerland-Center stands prominently along the bypass road. Although slightly detached from the actual city center, its sheer size makes it impossible to overlook. Its architecture is purely functional. In that spirit, I am using the façade as an artistic information and display panel, a massive “billboard” floating above the city, briefly giving space to fantasies, speculations, and associations—until the images dissolve in an endless flow, making way for new thoughts. In this way, the building begins to lead a visual life of its own. The intriguing question remains: what does it actually look like inside?
// How has the work evolved? Did you start with a completed script, or did you develop the imagery step by step?
I never work with completed scripts. There is usually a basic idea from which I allow myself to be guided. As a foundation, I use my extensive archive of images, along with new recordings that I combine with the existing material. I do not work with computer-generated content. All footage is created in an analog space and is digitally processed only in post-production. There, I experiment with transitions and recombine the material. Thoughts need time to unfold freely. The work ultimately finds itself.
// Which software do you work with? What qualities are important to you?
I use a variety of image and video editing programs—not only current software but also older tools. I also integrate analog techniques into my process. Whether photography, drawing, or film—I don’t make a big distinction. Any quality that emerges through the work is valid: perfection and beauty, but also fractures, disruptions, and imperfections. Pure aestheticism can be irresistible but quickly turns into kitsch.
// Our theme is “New Energies.” How do you see your work in this context?
An art festival can generate energy—by revitalizing a city center, presenting new ideas in familiar places, questioning established structures, fueling public discourse, creating distance, and opening new spaces for thought. All of this can have a liberating effect and unleash energy. My work is part of this overall process.
// What does “exhibiting” mean to you? How important is it that your work finds a place in public space?
Public art is deeply democratic. There are no barriers—neither financial, cultural, nor class-based. Public art is accessible to everyone. Unlike religion, science, or politics, art can draw from all sources. Unlike streets, parking lots, shops, or office spaces, public art serves no specific function—it stands on its own. It does not have to please; it can be stubborn. It remains the “other”—something that can settle into our everyday lives and transform spaces into something contemplative, playful, exciting, provocative, or even unsettling.
// What do you hope for from the audience?
As an artist, I make an offering. People may like my work, but they don’t have to. Perhaps the piece inspires them, perhaps it leaves them puzzled, perhaps some even find it confusing or disturbing. All of that is fine. As an artist, I only hope for this: curiosity and openness.
// And finally, a more philosophical question: How do you see the relationship between art and society?
Art and society are deeply intertwined in our culture, reflecting one another. In both realms, there has been a strong trend toward superficial perfection—flaws are retouched, smoothed out. Yet true beauty also has the power to unsettle; it can strip us of our certainties. Public art should not exist merely to be superficially appealing but should also challenge, provoke thought, and offer depth, complexity, and opportunities for critical reflection. This gives art a unique position in society: it is absolutely free.
// What are you looking forward to next?
My upcoming projects.