TROPFSTEIN | Waterlight Festival

‚TROPFSTEIN‘ (The German term for Stalactite; literally: ‚Dripping Stone‘) presents a typographic arrangement rooted in the movements of concrete poetry.
Letters seep through the walls of the building. They troop in and out of their places, forming meaning or dissolve into abstract architectual 3D-collages.

The work addresses the question of what makes peace possible today through the cipher of ‚trust‘. It explores trust as the interpersonal social glue that enables democratic societies to become resilient. Trust is a fragile state that emerges slowly — drop by drop. Our experiences, and moreover our shared narratives, form a slowly grown fabric of trust. Layer by layer, these stories accumulate like the tip of a water drop until they culminate in an event.

In an era of social media algorithms and AI, there is also a growing risk that our shared narratives — the very stories that hold our world together — are tilting out of balance. Because negative information on our screens triggers our consumption patterns and is prioritized by these systems, it threatens to tear the fabric of our society apart.

They are attacking our most precious asset: „TRUST“.

Niklas Luhmann describes trust as a mechanism for reducing the complexity of the world, thereby enabling us to act within it. In this context, Hannah Arendt emphasises the importance of keeping one’s promises.

„TRUST“ is closely linked to the concept of truth. What narratives do we surround ourselves with? In an increasingly complex world where people seek stability in their own identity narratives, it is becoming ever more difficult to be open to change. Max Frisch explored this psychological aspect of our nature in his literary work.

„TRUST“ remains the vital mediun that enables us to act within the unpredictability of the future.