Brainwave

“My Work is about energies, about time and space and the contradictions they contain: light and dark, warmth and cold, hatred and love, attraction and repulsion, noise and silence.” This is how Jan van Munster explained his practice when he received the German Light Art Award 2020 in Celle. One focus of his work is the “Brainwaves” work group, in which he converts recordings of his brainwaves, his own life energy, as it were, into large- or small-scale neon artworks. One of these electroencephalograms realised in neon has been shining at the façade of the Museum Wilhelm Morgner since 2018, highlighting the corner of the building above the entrance area. Jan van Munster’s “brainwave” is the third piece of light art in Soest after Richard Cox’s “Lichtbogen” (Lightarch) in the Gräfte (moat) and the Molitor-Kuzmin duo’s “Pilgerstab” (Pilgrim’s Staff) in front of the station. With this neon artwork, the city and the wallimlicht e.V. society, founded in 2009, are joining the “Hellweg – ein Lichtweg” (Hellweg – A Path of Light) network which comprises almost a dozen cities in the Eastern Ruhr area.