Exhibition

Lust/Landscape

From Panorama to VR Technology

Prof. Hartmut Jahn

The exhibition cycle LUST / LANDSCHAFT consists of four exhibitions in which the immersiveness of the photographic still image is examined – in large-format panoramic shots (100 x 506 cm / 100 x 1012 cm) up to the 360° panorama and implementation as VR action background in HTC vive.

The exhibitions in the barrier-free area of the campus of the Mainz University of Applied Sciences were supplemented by guided tours, such as “Art in the lunch break”, and lectures on history and garden design by Dr. Kay Sprenger, Mainz and Dr. Hombach, Cologne.

The starting point of the collaboration with the Institute for Historical Geography – IGL was the exhibition on the Ruined Garden of Ninfa in the Pontine Plain south of Rome. The garden is family-owned and only partially accessible to the public. While a 3D-acquisition was available, our perspective approach was a stereoscopic processing. Through the development of VR technology the question of the panorama was always linked up to the 360° rotunda. With the 90-degree displays developed by Dipl.-Des. Manfred Liedtke – curved, material: backlit foil, construction: modular – the above mentioned question could be taken up and developed up to the 360° rotunda. In this exhibition, the confrontation of planar works by Christoph Brech with the panoramic shots by Hartmut Jahn took place.

In a further step of the exhibition Blickachsen – Peter Joseph Lenné in the Rhineland, interior and exterior space was examined on the subject of Lenné’s work in the Rhineland. This shows the characteristics of his landscape designs, the many different view axes with which Lenné connected the individual parks with each other and whose buildings are effectively protected by these lines of sight. The walk along the winding garden paths leads to planned surprises of the view, which is framed again and again.

Motifs in the exhibition of the 180° panoramas etc:

  • Gardens on the hillside around Stolzenfels Castle (from 1842)
  • Landscaping of the Brühl Palace Garden (from 1842)
  • Rhine facilities, Koblenz (since 1842)
  • Garden for the Flora (Botanical Garden), Cologne-Riehl (1862)
  • Zehnthof, Sinzig (1855 – 1864)

The third exhibition takes on a special moment in the landscape garden and follows it seasonally in the garden architecture of Franz von Anhalt-Dessau:
At the border of the garden (June 2016). The Wörlitz Park has almost only natural boundaries.

In the north, the park is separated by the flood protection dike from the Elbe floodplain, which is very wide here. It also serves as a belt walk, from whose elevated position many of the classic lines of sight are visible, here the Medicean Venus in front of the pastureland of the Elbe floodplains. In the exhibition, this place is conceived as a 360° panorama, whose two entrances are introduced by 180° panoramas.

The knowledge acquired here flows into the audio level of the room to be developed, since the 180° panoramas had created completely new acoustic spaces – echo/half echo – which had to be taken up and designed.


The fourth exhibition is dedicated to Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and the largest landscape garden in Central Europe.
In addition to the 360° panorama, the form of the vertical panorama will be further developed here, for which own curved displays will be designed. Acoustic spaces are also being developed. The panoramas are optimized for VR technology and serve as background in a virtual environment that can be perceived, walked on and played with HTC vive glasses.

Projectmanagement: Prof. Hartmut Jahn
Institute for media design (img)
Exhibition design and graphics: Dipl.-Des. Manfred Liedtke and Dipl.-Des. Uwe Zentgraf
VR-Technology: Robin Huse M.A.