Idea
UNGROUND is a kinetic typographic light installation built around the letters of the German word ORDNUNG (“order”). Rather than forming a stable whole, these letters remain in constant rotation, occasionally hinting at partial words such as GROUND or RUN, but never fully settling. The piece mirrors our collective mode of news consumption: refreshing headlines again and again in the hope of finding something solid, only to encounter further fragmentation.
The invented term UNGROUND evokes the absence of any firm foundation. It names both an internal feeling of rootlessness and an external reality shaped by permanent crisis updates.
Photos: Jennifer Braun
Context
In Germany, studies such as the Security Radar by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation indicate a comparatively high level of trust in the media combined with marked anxiety about geopolitical developments. This tension, the desire to stay informed versus the fear of what new information might bring, drives the thematic core of UNGROUND.
Losing Ground
The word “Ordnung” implies structure and predictability. By scrambling its letters, the installation underscores how the reassurance we seek in news and information often dissolves before we can grasp it. Drawing on Marshall McLuhan’s notion of the “global village”, UNGROUND reflects the paradox of feeling increasingly connected while simultaneously becoming more unsettled.
Endless Refresh
Visitors watch as three gobo projectors cast rotating capsules of letters onto a wall. The letters swirl unpredictably, much like the endless scroll of headlines in a media feed. At times they briefly align and suggest meaning; more often they remain ambiguous, reflecting the elusive nature of “ground truth” in a world saturated with updates.
Personal Experience
The project also draws on the artist’s own experience of checking news websites dozens of times a day, a habit that produces not control, but exhaustion and emptiness. This emotional burnout lies at the heart of UNGROUND: by visually fragmenting the ideal of order, the work invites reflection on how we process, absorb and sometimes drown in the relentless flow of information.
Teaser
Technical Side
3D-printed letters in rotating capsules
Each capsule contains letters in typefaces inspired by real media logos, including a business newspaper, a tabloid and a local city paper. The different typefaces generate subtly different movement dynamics when rotated.
Bright LED gobo projectors
Standard gobo projectors were modified by replacing halogen bulbs with intense 50 W LEDs. Each projector rotates its capsule continuously, keeping the letters in motion and preventing any stable alignment.
Reflections in Lüdenscheid
Projected onto the walls of the abandoned city mall, the letters became legible through their mirrored reflections in the glass windows.
Photos: Slava Romanov
Presentation
UNGROUND was presented at the Lichtrouten Festival, 20-29 March 2025, in the abandoned Forum am Sternplatz in Lüdenscheid (DE). The projectors illuminated a corridor wall and enveloped passers-by in a shifting choreography of letters. Visitors could observe these fleeting formations and ask themselves how often they, too, refresh news feeds in search of answers only to end up with still more questions.
Links
Author
- Slava Romanov: Concept, design, and execution
See Also