SPIELraum

tactile sound • visual objects • atmospheric experience

Concept

PLAY space is seen as a living intelligence — self-generating and self-knowing.

Each object in SPIELraum manifests a space that materializes the multilayered causal nature of the play of elusive flow and the journey toward inner balance amidst constant external change.

This body of work explores the role of mindful mastery of attention in inhabiting each moment of the present, aiming to achieve inner equilibrium within the ever-turning cycle of a constantly changing external world.

Context

The project began as a diploma work at

Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Germany), Faculty of Art and Design, by Natasha Atmo (2026).

The installation was presented in the Main Building of Bauhaus University Weimar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Installation

The series of hybrid multimedia artworks, including sound mixes, video projections, spatial objects, and textile art — form an installation that presents the life path as a SPIELraum.

The installation begins with a plaster object in the form of a head/bust. It symbolizes the weight of the human mind — burdened with memory and conditioned by accumulated information, thought forms, experience, knowledge, meanings, desires, fears, and attachments. From this object extends a rope, shaped like a belt traditionally used in martial arts clothing. The belt stretches toward a set of gates that are not yet meant to be seen beyond.

Along the way, various obstacles appear —fire, water, and copper pipes — a Russian folkloric expression for enduring hardship and facing the temptations of fame and glory. In the course of the game / over the span of life, the character inevitably encounters these circumstances. The path can be traversed only by balancing on the tightened rope.

The installation does not prescribe specific actions, nor does it require the viewer to physically participate or walk the rope. The viewer remains an observer.

If we view life as a journey through a space of play, where external circumstances are not fatal inevitabilities but tests of resilience for the tightrope walker, then maintaining internal balance becomes crucial to avoid falling. This means not being attached to either nature of the game or external scenarios; not succumbing to emotional provocations, but remaining focused at every moment, like a tightrope walker moving along a stretched rope.

One real-life example and source of inspiration for this installation was an event that took place in 1974: Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the rooftops of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York, at a height of 400 meters above the ground, without safety equipment. He performed for 45 minutes, completing eight crossings of the wire, during which he walked, danced, and even lay down on the rope.