I AM (VR)
A dive into an immersive virtual world, exploring new and engaging ways of doing theater. A psychedelic journey, an incredible theatrical experience.
in English or Japanese
Cesena, Teatro Comandini
8 October from 11.00 to 21.40
9 October from 11.00 to 20.20
Modena, Biblioteca Delfini
from 12 to 15 October from 11.00 to 19.00
duration 35 minutes
reservation required
Thanks to Teatro Comandini in Cesena and Biblioteca Delfini in Modena for the kind hospitality and FOG Triennale Milano Performing Arts for the kind collaboration.
Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg in collaboration with Rodrik Biersteker
Concept and design Susanne Kennedy, Markus Selg, Rodrik Biersteker
Programming Rodrik Biersteker
Visul 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
Costumes 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) e Volkstheater Wien (Vienna – AT).
Thanks to Chiaki Soma, Christoph Gurk, the whole Oracle Team, Rafael Steinhauser, Anna Rausch, Lucas S. Maximiliano, Matthias Lilienthal
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?
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.
