Chaos Temple

In Holstebro, a town in Jutland, Denmark, a new TV-station was inaugurated in 1989. A lot of care has been spent on the transmitter mast. The height is approx. 50 meters, and the mast not only serves as a TV-mast but also as a sculpture. At night the mast is illuminated by laser light and projection of white light through holographic gratings.

There was no doubt about what kind of a job the city council of Holstebro wanted me to do for the TV Midt-Vest. It was:
1. To make the new transmitter mast a conspicuous landmark for the city.
2. To create a symbol of the age of information.
(I was most wellcome to use advanced technology as lasers and - if possible - holography) Luckily it was not hard for me to stick to the conditions of the project, since they hit me right in my area of fascination: the new tools of technology. Though computer and laser technology may seem to belong to the world of science fiction - and I myself, in many ways being an 'old time' artist, trying to express something universal about life - I was challenged - for what is universal? A funny thing was that, because - from time to time - I had been occupied with holography, I had been placed in a niche, where people expected me with grace to handle any high technology device - which was certainly a qualified truth. When I started the project, the name 'Chaos Temple' was just my own playful preliminary title which came to my mind spontanuously at the first sketches - and after all - later you need names and passwords for the computerwork . But I never found a better since.

I planned two projection 'screens' :
1. A crumpled up metal grid for a scanning laser beam.
2. Four concrete columns, on which the grid was resting, for the white light projection through holographic gratings (DCG) I designed the grid as chaotic as I could, if I still wanted an engineer to take the responsibility for the construction. I wanted it to be a contrast to the straight and tall columns which the grid is supported by and the scanned laser image seems to grow out of. The energy itself (the beam from a 5 w Spectra Physics argon-ion laser) comes out of the bosom of the earth, as the laser, the optics and the electronic steering system are in a cellar hidden in the ground, emitting the beams through a transparent plexiglass tube. The ever moving laser beam, which generates its ever shifting drawing within the chaotic area of 500 m2 crumpled up metal grid, will make us witness the constant creation of shapes (almost) never repeating themselves - clouds? - slowly rotating or somehow moving round the mast. The fixed (stationary) beam is reflected from a mirror in the top of the mast drawing a bridge of communication to the centre of the town - one mile away. Ten projectors on the roof of the TV-station are projecting white light through ten holographic gratings, giving the straight tall columns a regular progress of colours. Chaos - order?

During years Chaos Temple fell into decay. But on may 19th 2010 it was re-inaugurated to the strains of composer Willy Stolarczyk's "Chaos Temple Music" from the original inauguration in 1989 - with new lasers,
new dichroic filters (instead of holographic gratings which disappeared) with skilled laser technician Allen Collins in charge.