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Anhelus – the breathtaking baptismal font
a project by Marion Rosemarie Wagner and Ivonne Dippmann
Context
Anhelus deals with the phenomenon of a baptismal font and the act of Christian baptism in connection with the topic of sacred design. This was the topic of a class on digital media design taught at the Berlin University of Art in the summer semester 2006.
In addition to redesigning a traditional object, particular attention was paid to designing the process of baptism, for object design always includes process design. Designing an object implies that this object will be handled in some manner.
History
The century-old practice of baptizing primarily children resulted in a general miniaturization of the liturgical act of baptism. The baptismal font in the shape of a bowl became the miniaturized model of the original baptismal bath (baptisterium). The original act of a triple dousing (perfusion) or immersion, or more rarely submersion, in water was reduced to trickling a few drops of water along the forehead of the infant.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, baptismal angels were used primarily in Germany, Denmark and Sweden in protestant churches and were suspended hovering vertically from the ceiling of the chancel. During the baptismal ceremony, they were lowered by a pulley. There were also standing or kneeling baptismal angels bearing the baptismal font. Sometimes the font was even held by a pair of angels.
Considered as a process, a baptismal act generally only becomes “beautiful” the moment the priest blesses the water. Prior to that the water is taken from a river or tap. Subsequently it is discarded in a baptismal well or is used to water flowers.
Vision
Anhelus gathers the water intended for the baptism from the air of the congregation - water condensing on the cool brass point drips into the suspended basin. Since the humidity is increased by the breath of the people (lungs convert oxygen into water and CO2) and likewise by perspiration, all persons present in a sense participate in the act of baptism in which a new member is received into the Christian congregation. Formally speaking, the design is therefore a result of a consistent process of reduction.
Design
Invoking the baptismal angel, the suspended upper element has the shape of a cone. Since the bottom element thus seemed too static, we opted for the “hovering” variant here as well.
In the implementation we decided by use acrylic gypsum laminating resin and reinforced the material by fiberglass panels. It was particularly important in this regard not to integrate any object made for profane use into the baptismal font. Both the cone as well as the basin are originals and are made by hand.
Technology
The interior of the ceiling element contains a specially conceived technology, which allows for the brass point at the bottom of the cone to be cooled down to approx. 5 degrees Celsius such that the water from the ambient air can condense on it. Basically it is the effect of a cold drinking glass, which becomes wet on the outside when it is filled with cold liquid.
[anhelus, lat. breathtaking]
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Responses
Last year Anhelus has been presented in the context Sacraldesign during the Designmai at the Gallery Tristesse Deluxe in Berlin. Within the last months representatives of the catholic church reacted very positiv regarding the concept an the design of Anhelus. For us this positive reaction was really suprising since this is the 1st time that digital media is used to design a lithurgical object. There were no points of critique.
Videodocumentation [Quicktime; 5.40min; 8.6MB]
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