Castle Gnome is a virtual art

Virtual art

Virtual art is art practice using virtual reality, augmented reality or mixed reality as a medium in a digital environment..-Form:It can be considered a post-convergent art form, containing all previous media as subsets...

 project by Stefan Roloff

Stefan Roloff

Stefan Roloff is a painter, video artist and filmmaker, living and working in New York and Berlin. He is a pioneer of digital video and photography.- Life :...

. It was developed in a team effort with the web marketer Diego Gomez, the photographer Christian Jungeblodt and the 3D animator Frank Kunkel with music by Martin Rev

Martin Rev

Martin Rev is an American musician and the instrumentalist in the electronic proto-punk band, Suicide. He also has a solo career and has released several solo albums for a number of labels, including ROIR and Puu...

 and Johannes Roloff. Roloff’s inspiration arose from the heated debate about the reconstruction of the square. Defenders of the city castle's re-construction and their adversaries, the defenders of the former Communist Palace of the Republic called each other "philistine." His project gained additional momentum when the competition

Competition

Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

 for a monument to freedom and unity failed, despite 532 proposals.

As a result, in 2009, Stefan Roloff constructed a characteristically-German monument in the form of a 50 meter-high garden gnome in the virtual reality of Google Earth

Google Earth

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...

 and other digital spaces.

Historical background

The city castle, a baroque building, was finished by Andreas Schlüter

Andreas Schlüter

Andreas Schlüter was a German baroque sculptor and architect associated with the Petrine Baroque style of architecture and decoration.-Biography:...

 in 1699. In World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, it was severely damaged. In 1950, Walter Ulbricht

Walter Ulbricht

Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...

 had it torn down as a symbol of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n absolutism

Absolutism (European history)

Absolutism or The Age of Absolutism is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites...

. From 1973 to 1976, the German Democratic Republic

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

 (GDR) constructed the Palace of the Republic on the same land. After extensive asbestos decontamination, the German government completed demolition in 2008. In 2012 the "re- construction" of the new city palace will commence, with a budget estimated at 500 million Euros.

Nobody has the intention to build a wall. Former GDR Chairman Ulbricht told the international press on June 15, 1961, even though nobody had asked him. Two months later, the wall was built. The planned monument of freedom and unity is supposed to honor the peaceful revolution and remember attempts at unity in German history. After producing 532 proposals the competition was considered a failure.

External links

• Project Website (English, German, Spanish)
• Der Schlossplatz in Berlin (German)
• New palace
• http://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=546123 Periodico, Extremadura (Spanish)
• Artículo tagespiegel (German)
• http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Stefan+Roloff/30640.html Saatchi Gallery
• http://www.deschler-berlin.de/ Galerie Deschler