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New Animation Art Anerkennung - Honorary Mention 2025

Bewegungsapparat

Sven Windszus

Ignorance, overwhelm or poverty… There are many reasons why people do not change their way of life so that future generations have the same opportunities to use resources as the present. From an evolutionary point of view, we are overwhelmed with the problem of environmental degradation. We could not develop a thought pattern over the last millennia that would have taught us to be future-oriented to live. Our perception is designed in such a way that the present is more important than that future.  

Seen in this way, we are caught on treadmill that turns incessantly to maintain the previous system. We are literally sawing off the branch we are sitting on. 

The installation Bewegungsapparat consists of three rotating elements that are mechanically connected to each other. At the top position we see a monitor that changes continuously rotates 360°. A video is running on the display showing a person in a hamster wheel. Since the video is always horizontally aligned while the screen rotates, the monitor appears to be driven by the rotating motion of the person in the video. The upper screen drives a lower monitor by pushing it. On the screen of the lower monitor, an oil pump can be seen, which moves analogously to the movement of the monitor. The large rod pendulum is mechanically attached to the lower monitor and swings in the same rhythm. 

At the bottom of the pendulum a small saw blade is attached, which is constantly sawing at the steel holder of the whole installation. The impression is created that the system is destroying itself. 

The biggest challenge of the project was keeping the video image horizontal while the screens rotate. For this, many sensors had to be tested and special software programmed. 



Links: https://svenwindszus.com/bewegungsapparat/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1r18mmhfaA

Work and concept: Sven Windszus
Programming: Alexander Jasper
Engineering: Ulrich Kwade 

Sven Windszus (DE) was born in 1974 in Northern Germany, where he also grew up. He studied graphic design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim. Since 2003 he has lived in Berlin, where he works as a multimedia artist. He also teaches video and 3D software at the UdK, Berlin University of the Arts. His works focus on the interaction of digital processes and the analysis of reality and consciousness. Sven wants to uncover the contradictions in the reality of his life and to question his habits. Many of his works are interactive installations that invite the viewer to actively participate. Through this type of dialogue, existing perspectives and ideas are correlated with the content of his work. 

Bewegungsapparat is a kinetic video installation that transforms ecological paralysis into poetic machinery. Through three interlinked and rotating elements including a screen showing a figure on a treadmill, an oil pump, and a swinging pendulum tipped with a saw, artist Sven Windszus illustrates the self-destructive inertia of modern life. Ingeniously, the video remains upright while rotating, reinforcing the illusion that the system powers itself. As the saw blade gnaws at the sculpture’s base, the installation becomes a chilling metaphor: a society blindly sustaining the very motion that leads to its undoing.