German Speakers Global Award 2014 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
Starting with the question what the spoken word or a good speech is based on and led by, my thoughts about the design of the “German Speakers Global Award 2014“ to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama focused on the process of listening, or receiving.
It is one’s openness to what one perceives, listens to and thinks about that forms the basis of a substantiated and emphatically held speech.
When I continued by asking myself how this thought can be put into a form, it was mainly the fact that it is the “German Speakers Global Award 2014“ that made me decide that a sphere should be the basic form of this work.
But how can a sphere that is such a solid form transport one of the most important characteristic of a speech – the interaction of impressing and expressing?
Reading Nikolaus von Kues (Cusanus), an influential German philosopher, theologian and mathematician of the 15th century and about a game he developed called “de ludo globi“ (globe/ball game) helped me on.
The central form in this game is a ball. But the ball, symbolic of our planet, has a ‘dent’, a concave indentation that refers to another and transcendental level and its effect.
And so the shape of this award developed from a combination of all of the above ideas and thoughts.
A sphere that is indented concavely to its center by a second, imaginary and transcendental sphere with the same diameter transports the idea of the exchange between impression and expression, and reminds us of a cup, bowl or singing bowl.
Rotatable about all axes, the sphere is set on three low columns and a flat disc.
The multi-layered, high-gloss leaf gilding of the concave indentation gathers, assimilates and concentrates as much as it reflects and radiates. Impressing and expressing, sending and receiving coincide.
At the center of the gilded indentation the words I am listening have been added.
The work that also represents us, the honoring, professes to the honored, His Holiness the
14th Dalai Lama, that we are listening.
But the words also present a request and an affirmation to all of us, especially to those of us who are committed to speaking in a responsible and emphatic manner.
The work designed to be the “German Speakers Global Award 2014“ is a distinction, expresses our appreciation and hopes to give His Holiness the Dalai Lama some joy and energy.
Detail of measures, material and techniques:
measures:
total, including lining and storage box: 28 cm x 28 cm x 28 cm
“sphere“ with stand
material:
sphere: special concrete (also used in high-end speakers), 23,75K rosenoble double gold,
Shellac
stand: 19 mm mdf fibreboard imbued black
box: 16 mm multiples birch
realization:
“sphere“: prototype – process, grind – construction of form, three parts – process – cast –
process, grind and first layers – gilding, several layers – more Shellac layers – writing
added – more layers
stand: mdf imbued black, sawed, milled, ground and several layers of Shellac
“box“: 16 mm multiplex birch, processed and several layers of Shellac