Text and film of Soliloquio is the result of Heike Baranowsky’s intensive study of the meridian in the Roman church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.
The meridian line was commissioned 320 years ago by Pope Clement XI and placed in front of the most sacred area, the altar, as an astronomical tool to make astronomical measurements – such as the change in the inclination’s angle of the Earth – and to calculate the dates for Easter in advance.
The peculiarity of the meridian line is that it was laid at a time when the geocentric worldview was still the doctrine of the Church: that is, that the Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around the Earth. As an astronomical instrument, however, the meridian could prove the opposite.

The video shows the sun patch, more precisely the image of the sun moving across the marble floor and the furnishings of the church, over an entire year on important astronomical dates. Filmed by Volker Gläser and Heike Baranowsky in stop-motion technique, we see in parallel the winter / summer solstice, autumn and spring equinoxes and other astronomical annual events.

The voice-over, developed by Ursula Rogg as a libretto, combines architectural, astronomical and (religious) historical aspects of Soliloquio with observations of the first-person narrator from the year 2020/21; they took place under the condition of the Corona pandemic, and are interwoven in the narrative with descriptions of the Spanish flu in 1918.

It accompanies the film as an inner monologue in meandering narrative movements and is spoken by three different voices and in three languages. An Italian voice rhythmizes the text by enumerating all the dates on which the filmmaker was present in the church in 2020/21 similar to a rosary praying.

2-channel 4K, 4:3 each, 24:50 Min, stereo sound on headphones

Countries of production: Italy and Germany
Camera: Volker Gläser, Heike Baranowsky
Text: Ursula Rogg
Translation: Matthew Burbidge
Speaker: Heike Baranowsky, Sophie Hüsler, Ursula Rogg
Postproduction: Volker Gläser
Sound mix: Titus Maderlechner
Speaker coach: Donna Lee

[1] Soliloquio, Japanisches Palais Dresden, 2022; photo credit: HB;