Knowledge Explosion
Future bound the bookish tower
Wings beat against the walls secure
One more word, one more dash
Tough amazement in the whirl of leaves
The eye is free, the thoughts shaken
Released from shackles, slipped from hands
Caught in flight, can it endure?
Knowledge in vessels may easily crash
Rustle, pull, a mind’s fierce power
A throne offered up to the bird’s gaze!
Can it be heard, the spirit’s chimera?
To be sketched by the tentacles of times
Leonardo da Vinci was neither simply artist nor scientist. In his observations and works, driven by endless curiosity, he unified both. Leonardo is less known as a stage person, yet his activities as a scenographer are most kindred to his spirit. Theatricality permeates his entire oeuvre, shifting the boundaries between fiction and reality. Knowledge also emerges from such boundary shifts, and from a combination of new discoveries interwoven with what is already known. This is equally true of the spirit of scenography, whose task is to create tensions between individual elements.
Leonardo’s library as a cave housing the knowledge of the species and as a hall of mirrors: the framing, circular corridor of glass defines the spatial structure of the exhibition designed by Serge von Arx. Visually, however, it appears as a labyrinth. The individual glass panes are suspended like scales in a steel skeleton and emphasize the fragility of knowledge. Some of them also serve as showcases for exhibits, but as a whole, they emphasize the transparency and reflection of relevant knowledge fragments. The panes are made partly of dichroic glass, which reflects part of the light spectrum and allows the other part to shine through: perception is selective. The thematic sections of the exhibition are presented inside the glass corridor, but with views to the outside space and areas outside the glass circle where Leonardo’s life and times are presented. The inner area of the library and the outdoor space can be accessed from points along the corridor. At the center is the sound sculpture “Knowledge Explosion” – manuscripts whirled into the air by Leonardo’s intellectual storm.
Serge von Arx and Jürgen Renn
