The Light of the World – The Sugarcoat of Nuclear War
A world map built from white sugar cubes serves as a global canvas documenting the chronological history of nuclear detonations. This work provokes profound reactions and reflections on our technological advancements, their consequences and the impending threat of nuclear warfare and omnicide, the annihilation of all life forms, including humanity.
Welcome. I am Michael Saup. Artist.
“R111 could be considered the pinnacle of
media art at the turn of the millennium.”
Yukiko Shikata, President of International Association of Art Critics Japan, 2024
“Sometimes, it felt like the inner workings of the universe made visible. It revolved slowly, then grew in complexity until it seemed, in substance if not style, like a collaboration between da Vinci, Picasso and Stephen Hawking.”
Evening Post, New Zealand, 1998
Read more "°ABOUT" documentary film about the Fukushima nuclear crisis
with Keibo Oiwa, Japanese author, activist & philosopher
20 min
“Finding a positive thing in a very negative picture is the most difficult, most challenging type of criticism.” Keibo Oiwa
Read Morebefore the nuclear sunrise: the abyss of light
a short reminder by Michael and Laibach
“Their magnum opus. It is spectacular and sublime.”
The Quietus
“Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrtum | Without music, life would be a mistake”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Read MoreAn immediate humanitarian response to the earthquake and arising
nuclear crisis in Japan, March 2011
Read more "Humanitarian |
Open Home Project |
2011" Saup, on the other hand, with his monumental sculpture “Avatar Incarnation cRdxXPV9GNQ” depicts the daily consumption of energy by the seemingly clean Internet so strikingly and impressively “that it will blow every visitor away and is guaranteed to make them think.”
Donaukurier
Read more "AVATAR | 2010" How much energy is needed to view one single video on YouTube?
Read more "SCIENCE |
Media Metrics |
2010" How I stole the radioactive
Tree of Half-Life
from Chernobyl
“Radioactive traces will be the heritage to the next generations and not the cultural artifacts.”
Margit Rosen on Pulse8 by Michael Saup, 1992
Read more "FALLING FOREST | CHERNOBYL | 2008" some notes about my academic life in the late 90s early 00s
Read more "HfG Karlsruhe | 1999 – 2005" we have mutated from collective, connective to corrective.
let us correct you, before it is too late.
Read more "digital declaration by the infossil corrective | 2003" A Conversation between Peter Weibel and Michael Saup, Karlsruhe, 2002
“When people disappear, new systems and ideas can emerge. But i’m not fighting for death, i’m trying to limit it: we humans participate in this evolution for such a short time that we can’t even observe it. there’s a huge play being played on stage and we don’t see any of it. That’s why I would like us to be able to extend this tiny window, these eighty years, a little. So that I can understand a little more of this play.”
Peter Weibel, Karlsruhe, 2002
Read more "infossil – AD VITAM | 2002" アートラボ第5回プロスペクト展「R111 —仮想から物質へ」
Read more "R111 | 1999-2001" the tunnel of light – interactive light installation in Frankfurt airport.
Read more "LIGHT AS SKIN | 1997 – 2015" data-tableau with data fossils, C, 1991
Read more "Sonic Shadows | 1991" “If you believe the audience that applauds Saup, this beautiful new media future should best begin right away.”
taz.de, Germany, 1998
“…a merciless revealer using the means of Art.”
Berliner Zeitung, Germany, 2010
Read more "°WORKS & EXHIBITIONS" This dream is for you
So pay the price
Make one dream come true
You only live twice
–John Barry / Leslie Bricusse (1967)
Read more "Quote"