Ashton's carefully crafted mix of colour and precision lighting transformed the imposing 38m tall monument, built to commemorate the foundation of the German Empire after the Franco Prussian war in 1883, into a symbol of European peace and harmony.
Ashton was first approached at the beginning of the year to contribute a work to the festival by its curator and co-ordinator Helmut M. Bien, who already had Germania in mind as a site. Says Ashton "It was a huge honour to be invited to the Rheinpartie, and even more so to specifically be asked to work on a such a key site with the historic and strategic relevance of Germania."
The essence of Ashton's concept was to deconstruct a symbol of past nationalism, in the process creating a transient and beautiful piece of visual art that represented the positivity, the future and way forward for all of Europe.
Germania's robes were delicately highlighted in blue and yellow to represent Europe, and the two smaller angel statures lower down - personifying war and peace - were also bathed in blue and gold. In the seven-minute rolling projection show, their wings were animated to flicker, so they appeared to be in a hovering pose.
Onto the main structure just below the 10.5m Europa, the flags and crests of all the EU member states were unfurled in a gentle dissolve.
The steps at the base of the monument became a tumbling waterfall - metaphor for all the rivers of Europe flowing together united, spreading, growing and living.
Ashton utilised four Christie 20K projectors to fill his canvass. Two were overlaid and used to cover all sections of the statue. The other two were positioned side-by-side to form the waterfall down the steps below. All four were fitted with 1.4 - 1.8 zoom lenses.
The show was programmed by Richard Porter using an E/T/C OnlyView system, Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D. The artwork was composited by Ashton using Photoshop over a period of about two weeks. Once the three nights of Rheinpartie shows were underway, the control was positioned 100m away in the back of a van.
(Jim Evans)
