From the Distant PastAmerican Museum of Natural History, New York City 2011. In collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute a spectacular light art exhibit was realized at the AMNH in the heart of New York City. Each evening from November 14 to November 27, green animated waves projected by two high-power lasers pulse over the Hayden Sphere in the AMNH's Rose Center for Earth and Space. From the Distant Pastis not only an extraordinary art & science project about the origins of the universe that uses data from the Hubble Space Telescope, it is also an artistic reflection on the phenomenon of colour by the means of concept art using laser light as a minimalist tool of graphical notation.
Cosmic RevelationKASCADE array, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (D), 2009. At the end of March 2009 a giant light field of about 40.000 square metres made science a true experience. As a light installation unique in its size for Germany Cosmic Revelation made the energies of cosmic rays visible originating from the depths of space and interacting with our planet. One or two times per seconds the cosmic energies revealed its existence in bright flashy moments over the sixteen "cosmic mirrors" – light sculptures especially created for the project. Oxford Professor Martin Kemp resumes in Nature: A new art is encoding a new science.(Nature 458, 836 [2009] )
ImachinationsDigital projection, MUMOK Vienna 2008, ca. 3,10 x 2,90 m. The Imachinations were presented from 28 February till 18 May 2008 at the exhibition Genau+anders - Mathematik in der Kunst von Dürer bis Sol LeWitt, Museum für Moderne Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. On 31 March 2008 Imachination N° 500 appeard at the museum in Vienna. Curator Michael Rottmann writes: "Es entstehen in einer Sequenz digitale Bilder, die in ihrer Prozesshaftigkeit und Flüchtigkeit in einer Tradition der seriellen Kunst und der frühen Computergraphik stehen und die spezifischen Bedingungen von 'Digitalität' befragen: Was ist das Bild das wir wahrnehmen und wo entsteht es?"
ColoursexKoehler AG, Oberkirch (D), 2009. The self-organisation of colour is the core principle of Coloursex. Based on this principle the first window installations were realized in 2009. Dots of transparent colour foil build a matrix of interacting colours which can be read line by line. Curator Konrad Scheurmann writes in occasion of the exhibition "Farbe materiell – Farbe immateriell" in Dresden 2009: Die
Selbstorganisation von Farbe steht in besonderer Weise im
Zentrum von dem Werkzyklus 'Coloursex'. [...] Farbnotationen, wie sie
z. B. Paul Klee in seiner Kunstlehre entwarf, erfahren eine
eigendynamische Weiterentwicklung.
I see what I see notKunstfassade München (D), 2004/05. On invitation by Marion Ackermann the project I see what I see not was developed for the "Kunstfassade" in the heart of the city of Munich. Pixel by pixel astronomical pictures from the most objects in the universe were translated to the light panels of the media facade. The project was awarded in 2004 by the International Media Art Award by SWR & ZKM Karlsruhe. Jury member Prof. Horst Bredekamp resumes the project's special connection of art & science: Eine Ursprungsrhetorik mit visuellen Mitteln, die den Ursprung nicht als Ende definiert, sondern als Potenz zu neuen Öffnungen.
BarrocoDeutsche Diamand- und Edelsteinbörse, Idar-Oberstein 2003. A special interplay between near and far was performed by means of a large projection measuring no less than 40 meters in occasion of the International Gemstone Trade Fair held at Idar-Oberstein. In the barocco cycle the world of gemstonce were approached by capturing in a private gemstone collection the shadows of the precious stones on light sensitive slide film. Finally the shadow pictures were projected on the façade of the the 80m high monolith of the German Diamonds and Gemstone Bourse, thus causing arts and architecture to enter into a baroque-like dialogue of surfaces.
VideoshadowsLichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, ZKM Karlsruhe (D), 2005. One of Tim Otto Roth's most amazing discoveries in the sector of cameraless experimentation with photosensitive surfaces was the invention of the "video photograms" in 2000. Objects were put not on photographic paper but on CCD-chips - the core of every video or digital camera. In the installation a light roboter draws a changing light movement in the air. The resulting shadow and light impression on the chip can immediately seen in the 3 by 4 meter projection as non-euclidian space with changing colour scales.
Colour creates in Chromology a link between the tradition in painting systemizing the phenomenon of colour and latest scientific models of self-organisation which are used for instance in biomathematics. Chromology demonstrates by simple means the potential of a chromatic non-linear dynamics interpreting standard disco colour wheels as interacting colour clocks.
Colours of the UniverseHydrogen plasma light sculpture, Illmenau 2008.
The idea of the light sculpture goes back to a quite basic question: What is the colour of the Universe? Looking to an averaged spectrum of large galactic surveys reveal a dominant peak in the red part of the spectrum which originates from Hydrogen – the most abundant element in the Universe. A Thuringian glassblower for scientific instrument manufactured the light sculpture. The discharge tube in the form of a spherical glass spiral is also quite a hot sculpture: A relatively high voltage is applied to excite the filled in rarefied Hydrogen gas.
100 Days - 100 ImachinationsLibrary of Alexandria (EG), 2005. For 100 days this series of daily interfering abstract images appear via internet almost as projection parallel in different places. Laura Marks writes about the projection in Alexandria in her islamic genealogy of new media art: These visualizations recall color field painting and the minimal light-based works of Dan Flavin. [...] It appears as a fluctuating wave pattern: the forms are produced by superimposing two wave patterns, whose color and scale change seemingly at random, but actually according to the numbers following the decimal point in the calculation of pi. What looks like an abstract pattern is an index of an unending process of mathematical calculation. (Enfoldment and Infinity)
Pixelsex brought 'life' to the at that time world's largest light façade at the KPN Tower in Rotterdam built by Renzo Piano. The fight about life and death is visualized on the 80 m high façade in a minimalist manner by a so called cellular automaton, whereby the pixels – the single picture elements – do have sex with each other, new pixels are born and other pixels die. Pixelsex was realized in collaboration with the bio-modelling group at TU Dresden.
From the Distant PastPalazzo Franchettie, Venice 2010 The art & science cooperation with the Hubble Space Telescope explores the frontiers of colour vision in astronomy. The first presentation created a powerful light installation at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in the heart of Venice. Every evening from 15 September until 15 October 2010 from an animated, green laser pulse illuminated the 500-square-metre facade of the Palazzo Franchetti to represent the oldest colours in the Universe – spectra from some of the most distant objects in the Universe observed by the Hubble.
facing scienceWeltWissen, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 24.09.2010-09.01.2011 Facing Science gives a dynamical face to the scientific network of people connected to Berlin fusing the scientist's portraits into a movie projection. 1440 faces per minute pass by the spectator's eye in a looped animation to merge in a continually changing visage. The animation is presented as a projection in the jubilee exhibition WeltWissen at the Martin-Gropius-Bau. A crucial part plays the web: Scientists can invite their colleagues to participate. By that way a map of relations grows continuously and gives a dynamic image to the scientific networks behind the faces as well.
Magia Catoptrica is the first laser based work by Tim Otto Roth presented as a commission for the exhibition Blendwerk in the Baroque castle Achberg in Southwest Germany. Due to a green laser, a haze machine and a cluster of disco mirror balls the light paths of reflections postulated by the Baroque scientist Athanasius Kircher in his opus Ars magna lucis et umbrae can be experienced as a minimalist play of light. Above all there is a special relation to the Saint Sebastian and its location in the chapel and its neighbouring confessional.
VideoshadowsLeuchtspur, MMK Frankfurt 2002
For the exhibition Leuchtspur of the MMK (Museum für Neue Kunst) Frankfurt in 2002 the video shadows were presented the first time as a projection work in the public space. The light robot was installed in a gangway at the historic town hall of Frankfurt and the imagery was backprojected into the window pane facing the "Frankfurter Römer".
On the occasion of the German Light Art Award for his concept Switch Off Uwe Rüth wrote in the juries plea: To win a light award with an action centring the darkness implicates to render moot the whole light art and to disclose that light can't exist without darkness.
Little Bang Theory, Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, Ditzingen, 9 September 2016
cosmic revelation
From the Rocket to the Moon, group show featuring Cosmic revelation, Galerie Parrotta Contemporary Art, Burg Lede, Bonn, D, 1 June – 27 July 2019 Zentrale der SV-SparkassenVersicherung, Stuttgart (in occasion of the light art festival Aufstiege), 17 September - 9 October 2016 Deutsches Elektronen-Synchronton DESY Zeuthen, Astroteilchenphysik in Deutschland: Status & Perspektiven, 25 Feburary 2010 KIT Center for Elementary Particle and Astroparticle Physics (KCETA), KASCADE field at KIT Campus North, 30 March 09 KIT Center for Elementary Particle and Astroparticle Physics (KCETA), Karlruher Institut für Technology (KIT), 10 November 08
sterea skia
Light from the Other Side, Goethe Institut, Washington D.C., 09 November 2016 - 13 January 2017 Die zweite Natur, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel, 26 November 2016 - 8 January 2017 lichtsicht 5, Bad Rothenfelde, 18 September 2015 - 7 February 2016
Heaven's Carousel
Heaven's Carousel, GLOBALE, Karlruhe (D), 19 June - 9 August 2015
Heaven's Carousel, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, 23 April - 2 May 2015 Heaven's Carousel, Hubble Space Telescope IV Conferce, Accademia dei Lince, 18-20 March 2014
memento 190
memento 190, a temporary memorial for World War I,since August 2014
From The Distant Past
public laser projection at the Rose Center for Earth & Space, American Museum of Natural History New York City, 7 November - 27 November 2011 public laser projection at the Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, 25 September - 2 October 2011 public laser projection at the Palazzo Franchetti - Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venice, 15 September - 14 October 2010
Gefängnis der Sinne
Prison of the Senses, invisble light installation, Kunsttage Offenburg, Altes Gefängnis Offenburg, 12-21 April 2013
facing science
facing science, screen projection in the context of the jubilee exhibition WeltWissen - 300 Jahre Wissenschaften in Berlin at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, 24 September 2010 - 9 January 2011 facing science, screen presentations at
Institut für Mathematik & Informatik, FU Dahlem & at
Erwin Schrödinger-Zentrum Campus Adlershof, November 2010 - - 9 January 2011
Chromology
Iris - die Erfindung der Farben, Städtische Museen Wetzlar (D), 18 November 2010 - 06 March 2011 Color continuo, Runge Haus, Wolgast (D), 5 June till 29 August 2010
Color continuo 1810...2010 - System und Kunst der Farbe, Altana Gallery University Collections Dresden (D), 24 Oct. 2009 - 27 February 2010
Magia Catoptrica
BLENDWERK - Barocke Haltungen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Schloß Achberg, Ravensburg, opening 1 August - 17 October 2010
Coloursex
window installation at Festspielhaus Hellerau/ Dresden for the exhibition "Farbe materiell – Farbe immateriell", 11 December 2009 - 10 January 2010
sitespecific window installation at KIB Oberkirch, July -Octobre 2009
window installation at group exhibition "Konkrete Farbfotoarbeiten" at Verein für aktuelle Kunst Oberhausen, 26 April - 7 June 2009
Pixelsex
KPN Tower Rotterdam [NL], parallel to Art Rotterdam '06, February 16-20
KPN Tower Rotterdam [NL], Witte de Witt Festival (with V2) Sept. 05
Pixelsex in Rotterdam 05
100 Days - 100 Imachinations
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien [A], 28 February - 18 May 08 Bibliotheca Alexandrina [EG], 28August - 05 December 05 HFS Jungfraujoch [CH], 29 January - 09 May, 05 Center for Art & Media ZKM Karlsruhe [D], 29 November 04 -06 March 05 Schloß Dagstuhl [D], 29 November 2004 -06 March 2005 Spitzbergen [D]- till 06 March 05 Kassel [D]- till 06 March 05
Imachinations at MUMOK Vienna, until 18 May 2008
Imachinations at the New Library of Alexandria 2005
I see what I see not
Kunstfassade, Munich - November 04 - March 05 Kunstfassade, Munich - November 03 - March 04
Art Facade, Munich 05
Switch Off
five ways to switch off the light, Lüdenscheid 2004
shadow pictures/ photograms
ZKM Karlsruhe, Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, 19.11.2005-3.08.2006 Regierungspräsidium Kassel, DTP im RP, 7 Feb. - 4 March 2003 MMK Frankfurt, Lichtspur, April - August 2002
video chip photogram with light roboter at ZKM Karlsruhe
Deutsche Diamand- und Edelsteinbörse Idar-Oberstein, Barroco, Oktober 2003
barroco: projection of 40 by 40 meters in Idar-Oberstein (D)
Little Bang Theory, Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, Ditzingen, 9 September 2016 
From the Rocket to the Moon, group show featuring Cosmic revelation, Galerie Parrotta Contemporary Art, Burg Lede, Bonn, D, 1 June – 27 July 2019
