Like a classic neon sign, the sentence: “I can see the whole room! … and there’s nobody in it!” is exposed, as the upper end on the roof edge of the newly built computer center of the Johannes Guten­berg Univer­sity – the first part above the north­west facade and the second part of the sentence above the south­west side. During the day, the text appears dark like the façade against the sky; at dusk, the text glows a warm white. The type­face is a classic non-propor­tional font, Courier, orig­i­nally designed by Howard Kettler in 1956.

The phrase quotes the image of a man looking out of a black canvas through a round hole from 1961 by Roy Licht­en­stein. A speech bubble above it contains the sentence that the man is saying to someone. Roy Licht­en­stein took the image from a Steve Roper cartoon by William Over­gard from 1961, in which the sentence is preceded by  “Trooper! …” as the person addressed. Like other works by Licht­en­stein, it thema­tizes seeing, reading and recog­nizing through a tech­nical appa­ratus and its uncer­tainty. Here, the text message stands as a lumi­nous head­line to the compact body of the computer center. The state­ment connects with the archi­tec­ture and seems to ques­tion it.
But does “I can see the whole room / place!” only refer to the building or also to the imme­diate surround­ings, the inter­sec­tion or the land­scape … and who could make such a state­ment from which point of view?
“room” means: space, chamber, place, scope, and in addi­tion to an enclosed space, one also speaks of “room for improve­ment”, “room to move” or “room for hope” or “s. o. left no room for doubt”. Someone seems to have an overview of all this, but cannot see or recog­nize anyone and comes to the conclu­sion that this place is empty.

Commis­sioned by: the state of Rhineland-Palati­nate, repre­sented by Johannes Guten­berg Univer­sity Mainz (JGU)
Design 2024, comple­tion 2025
Photos: Thorsten Goldberg