Installation with Michael Schmitt, at Kunstraum Anakoluth, Köln

Video also available in german, featuring the audio guide from the exhibiton, which then was provided by a phone number.

A model train disappears into a tunnel in the left-hand window of a closed gallery. Instantly—without delay—it emerges from a second tunnel in the window to the right, gliding into view as if the distance between them had collapsed completely. Between the two windows lies a transparent glass door, revealing that no physical connection exists. And yet, the train seems to jump.

Einstein Rosen Bridge is a quietly delightful intervention into both everyday space and the physics of illusion. Named after the theoretical “bridge” or wormhole that connects two points in spacetime (first described by Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen in 1935), the piece evokes a familiar trope from science fiction: the impossible portal that makes the fantastic plausible. A phone number posted near the work offered callers a brief explanation of the Einstein-Rosen bridge, but offered no clues about the mechanics of the train itself.

Technically, the trick is achieved through a carefully timed choreography between two identical Märklin H0 model trains, sensors, and a custom microcontroller hidden from view. But the artists deliberately leave the technology in the background. What matters is the feeling—a moment of magic in the middle of a quiet street, where something as ordinary as a model train becomes a vehicle for surprise, wonder, and maybe a little bit of sci-fi awe.

Born from a playful back-and-forth between two longtime collaborators, the piece also touches—gently—on ideas of childhood nostalgia, the suspension of disbelief, and the serious possibilities of “adult toys.” Installed during the gallery’s summer closure, Einstein Rosen Bridge turned the shopfront itself into a kind of time-space experiment: a speculative fiction you could stumble upon while walking by.