Messe Karlsruhe cordially invites residents to the reopening of the Stadthalle. The public opening on Friday, November 6, 2026, starting at 5:30 p.m., offers a varied program as well as open doors for visitors to explore the Stadthalle on their own.
Visitors can experience a concept that is special worldwide: the media art work Rondeau combines light, sound, and architecture in an independent artistic composition. It is permanently installed in the Stadthalle’s Weinbrenner Hall and premieres at the reopening.
With Rondeau, the Weinbrenner Hall of the Stadthalle Karlsruhe receives a permanently installed media art work by the collaborative art studio VOLNA. At its center are the 21 distinctive dome lights by the lighting design firm ENVUE HOMBURG LICHT. In a specially developed light choreography, they seem to rotate, float, and move together as a dancing ensemble. Together with specially composed music, they create an immersive composition of light and sound that weaves the hall’s architecture into a unique interplay. Fully integrated into the lighting programming, the installation can add atmosphere to events at the Stadthalle and also stand on its own as an artwork.
“We want to give our event clients more than modern infrastructure. We want to work with them to make their events stand out. Whether it’s a trade show, a congress, a networking event, or a gala dinner, ‘Rondeau’ can be used as an atmospheric accompaniment or to highlight the spatial character of an event, depending on the occasion. In this way, the Weinbrenner Hall combines its technical equipment with a distinct artistic profile,” says Britta Wirtz, Managing Director of Messe Karlsruhe.
“The installation ‘Rondeau’ combines light, sound, and architecture into an artistic experience that makes the Weinbrenner Hall tangible far beyond its function as an event venue. As a permanently installed media art piece, the work showcases Karlsruhe’s profile as a UNESCO City of Media Arts: here, art and technology come together in ways that open up new forms of perception, encounter, and shared experience,” says Dr. Dominika Szope, Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs Kalrsruhe.
Light Becomes a Dancing Element
The 21 circular dome lights, designed and developed specifically for the Weinbrenner Hall by the lighting design firm ENVUE HOMBURG LICHT, form the heart of Rondeau. Traveling light pulses along the LED strips at the edges of the lights create the impression that they are rotating. Asymmetrical light animations make the lights seem to float and move through the space like dancers. Flowing color gradients, changing light intensities, and targeted accents from the additionally programmed spotlights expand the interplay into a multilayered choreography. The Weinbrenner Hall thus becomes a living space that continually unfolds anew to the rhythm of the composition.
“We are fascinated by how a harmonious whole emerges from individual movements. Each light follows its own dynamic and at the same time becomes part of a larger whole: a collective dance of light and sound,” VOLNA says of its artistic approach.
For the realization, the City of Media Arts curated the work Rondeau by VOLNA together with Messe Karlsruhe and MESO Digital Interiors. “In addition to showing the moving artwork itself, the technical solution allows the light choreography to be integrated flexibly into different event concepts. All 21 dome lights with their surrounding LED strips can be controlled individually,” says Prof. Sebastian Oschatz of MESO Digital Interiors, who was responsible for the media strategy for the Weinbrenner Hall.
The acoustic layer is an ambient-generative composition by the musician Szdåt. It unfolds in three acts that flow seamlessly into one another. It is complemented by a variety of additional musical phrases linked to the light movements, which add further accents and let light and music respond directly to each other. The result is a composition that changes continuously while being held together by a recurring motif.
The title Rondeau refers to the principle of circular repetition and variation found in the historical poetic and musical form of the rondeau. The installation transfers this principle into contemporary media art: circular motion, rhythm, harmony, and variation merge into a spatial composition. Rondeau is VOLNA’s largest work to date and its first permanently installed work in Karlsruhe. The collaborative art studio, founded in 2016 by Nikita Golyshev and Snezhana Vinogradova, has been based in the City of Media since 2022. At the intersection of light art, architecture, and time-based media, VOLNA develops site-specific interventions, immersive lighting environments, scenographies, and kinetic works.
