Welcome to the other side: theater in virtual reality
In "I AM (VR)", Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg, in collaboration with Rodrik Biersteker, explore new immersive theatre dimensions. The spectators are invited to dive into a virtual world. Only after the awareness of this new reality over several stages has been heightened is the time ripe for an encounter with the oracle. The future appears in the algorithms of fractals. What question do you want to ask the oracle?
Susanne Kennedy (Germany, 1977) studied direction at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Amsterdam, debuted on the Dutch stage. In 2011 she was invited to work at the Münchner Kammerspiele. For “Fegefeuer in Ingolstadt,” she was voted Young Director of the Year by Theater heute magazine in 2013. In recent years, she has been based at Volksbühne Berlin and Münchner Kammerspiele, produced “ULTRAWORLD” and “ORACLE” with Markus Selg in 2020. In her works, distorted by masks, playback dialogue, doppelgängers and multimedia, the actors confront the audience with a question: what does it mean to be human?
Markus Selg (Germany, 1974) is a multimedia artist exploring the dynamics between archaic myth and computer technology in forms of digital painting, sculpture, immersive installations, theatre and VR. Selection of exhibitions / performances: “COMING SOCIETY” and “ULTRAWORLD” 2019/2020 at Volksbühne Berlin. For “ULTRAWORLD” he received the Faust Award 2020 for best stage design. He has been active across a variety of genres, including performing art feature films, and opera productions.
Rodrik Biersteker (Netherlands, 1986) studied Design for Virtual Theater and Games at the HKU University of Arts in Utrecht. He is an interdisciplinary artist who primarily uses video and interactive technologies in a theatrical context. In recent years, there have been numerous collaborations with Susanne Kennedy in productions for the Ruhrtriennale, Münchner Kammerspiele and Volksbühne Berlin, the latest being “ULTRAWORLD” (2020) for he and Markus Selg were awarded the Faust prize for best stage/video design.
I Dream Therefore I Am: Virtual Reality of Human Consciousness
"The richest, maximally robust, and close-to-perfect VR-experience we currently know is our very own, ordinary, biologically evolved form of waking consciousness itself. VR is the best technological metaphor for conscious experience we currently have.” - Thomas Metzinger
Against the background of the analogy between the structure of human consciousness and VR experiences, old questions appear under new auspices. The epistemological problem of distinguishing the truth of things from the way they appear in our perception has occupied not only the history of philosophy since its beginnings - from Plato's allegory of the cave to the questions of Buddhism to far beyond the Cartesian cogito ... Who would decide for the red, who for the blue pill? The world on the wire has become a reality of life, only wireless. In a present in which the boundaries between virtual and supposedly real reality are becoming increasingly blurred, human life seems like a large-scale simulation that is increasingly capable of generating images, creating new realities and modulating emotions. Is what is depicted in our perception reality or one of many realities? Do we not still watch fascinated a shadow play on a cave wall? Or have we long since become part of a computer game in whose glitches the truth of our self is revealed?
Mind in the Cave - A trip through the total VR theater
„Gnothi seauton“ ("Know thyself") - as an inscription of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, the imperative accentuates the limitedness of the human being and at the same time points beyond it as a philosophical and spiritual educational mission. Just as the truth-seeking Oedipus made his way to the Delphic oracle, the hope for knowledge and enlightenment manifests itself in a digital oracle in the context of I AM (VR).
By means of a VR headset, the spectators become participants who first have to go through several stages until they are finally ready to meet the oracle. They embark on a meditative journey through a kind of virtual cave parable, in which archaic signs and futuristic architectures interpenetrate each other, while the foundations of human consciousness are called into question. The experience is a psychedelic trip, a total theatrical experience that seems to know no outside. And yet the immersive totality only marks an audiovisual framework for the actual theater, which slowly emerges from the experiences and questions in the consciousness of the participants.
Set up
In the installation sketch, the original setting of the VR performance becomes visible. The participants experience the virtual reality individually in the protected space of a fabric-covered cube/unit. The number of cubes/units is open and to be decided by the presenting venue/festival. The setting outlined in this way can thus be adapted to any hygiene concepts of the future.
Technical Rider
Credits
Concept and Design: Susanne Kennedy, Markus Selg, Rodrik Biersteker
Programming: Rodrik Biersteker
Visual Design: Markus Selg, Rodrik Biersteker
Sound Design & Composition: Richard Janssen
Text: Susanne Kennedy
Dramaturgy: Tobias Staab
Voices: Susanne Kennedy, Ixchel Mendoza Hernandez, Frank Willens, Ibadet Ramadani
Avatars: Ixchel Mendoza Hernandez, Benjamin Radjaipour, Thomas Hauser
Costume: Teresa Vergho
Production: Ultraworld Productions (Berlin - DE)
Management and Distribution: Something Great (Berlin - DE)
Co-produced by Berliner Festspiele (Berlin - DE), Hybrid Box / Hellerau - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste (Dresden - DE), Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel (Hamburg - DE), Münchner Kammerspiele (Munich - DE), Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society (Groningen - NL), Schauspielhaus Bochum / Oval Office (Bochum - DE), Theater Commons Tokyo (Tokyo - JP) and Volkstheater Wien (Vienna - AT).
Thanks to: Chiaki Soma, Christoph Gurk, the whole Oracle Team, Rafael Steinhauser, Anna Rausch, Lucas S. Maximiliano, Matthias Lilienthal
Full-length recording of the virtual experience
Password: somethinggreat
Susanne Kennedy & Markus Selg
Susanne Kennedy & Markus Selg are two German artists who have been working together since 2016. Kennedy is a groundbreaking female theatre director whose aesthetics and approach bring a unique and fresh perspective to the traditionally male-dominated realm of Western theatre. Through the use of playback dialogue, doppelgängers, masks, and multimedia, her performances invite us to question the essence of what it means to be human. Selg is a multimedia artist who explores the intersection of ancient mythology, digital technology, and human consciousness. In his works, he examines the possibilities and consequences of living in a virtual world that has been transformed into a constant flow of data and information.