Elisabeth von Samsonow

Stream Diver is an electro-kinetic sculpture located in front of the Hammerwerk, a small hydroelectric power station owned by EVN on Jahnstrasse that is still in operation and uses the Mühlbach’s waters. The structure of the sculpture combines modern hydropower with the bust of a woman from the Voith Villa in St. Pölten that is assumed to depict Thea Voith, the American wife of Walther Voith. The Voiths were entrepreneurs engaged in the German turbine industry. Walther was the son of the company’s founder Friedrich and he arrived in St. Pölten in 1904 in order to direct the first subsidiary of his father’s company in Austria. Twelve large Voith turbines produced here in St. Pölten were installed at the Niagara Falls, where they still operate today. 

Visiting St. Pölten and studying the topic of water, Elisabeth von Samsonow became more and more intrigued about the bifurcation that divides water as a symbol of feeling and life from its use in technology and industry while, at the same time, connecting them in an uncanny way. The idea of the flow, the current, or the stream offers strong references to and associations with other forms of “energy” such as nerves, electricity, data cables or telepathy. 

The sculpture Stream Diver reveals parts of the Voith water saga, in which early technological forms were related to mystery, cryptic occurrences or even séances that were presumably organised by Thea Voith. It was at this time that the Hammermühle, now the Hammerwerk, was built as—in the reading of the artist—the marriage of the magical and the rational. As in the earlier works of the artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow, the sculpture Stream Diver stands for the feminisation of technology, the performativity of totems and the merger of the human, non-human, industrial, spiritual and ecological. Since 2020, the artist has been developing an eco-activist-feminist project space “Land der Göttinnen” / “Land of Goddesses” on a nearby farm in Lower Austria. Now small turbines or “sculptures developed for low fall water streams” join her pantheon.

This work was produced by Elisabeth von Samsonow together with Voith Hydro St. Pölten.

Elisabeth von Samsonow (1956, Neubeuern, Upper Bavaria) is one of the most important contemporary philosophers and artists. She is a university professor of philosophy and historical anthropology of art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 1996, she was promoted to the Chair of Sacred Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; an honour for her 20 years of work at the Academy, where she has made a significant contribution to the Academy's position in various functions. Her extensive academic and artistic achievements cover a wide range of subjects, demonstrating the broad spectrum of her work in all its facets. Elisabeth von Samsonow lives and works in Vienna and Hadres (Weinviertel, Lower Austria).