In preparation: PERPETUUM in ZOOM coming soon... - The city without hardship.
A site-specific ONLINE city staging
Theater ANU explores the artistic possibilities of video chat rooms and interactive online platforms with the well known poetic narrative style of its characters.
Everything revolves around the question: How do we want to live together as a society in the near future?
A new city is about to be built: ORFFYREUS STADT, named after the inventor of the first perpetual motion machine, the Perpetuum mobile, who claimed to solve all of humanities problems with an everlasting source of energy, the “eternal wheel”. He called this utopia a city without hardship. A place meant to be a safe haven from all modern threats. Wheather concerning physical health, mental health or ones financial situation, there will no longer be any danger to the citizens of Orffyreus Stadt.
The first step towards the future has been taken. A contest is about to take place, in order to find out who is worthy of being the first resident of the city without hardship.
The concept
The “candidates” (audience) are split up into small groups, competing to become the first residents of “Utopia PERPETUUM”.
We use greenscreen technology to create an analogue looking virtual space. Using images of your city as part of the plot is an important part of the idea:Live and preproduced scenes from your city will mix up fiction with reality and lead the audience to a new kind of gaming reality.
Technology: "Zoom" video conference platform
ANU shifts its poetic work into the realm of the world wide web. For this we use the video conference tool “Zoom” as a virtual space. Many of you might be familiar with Zoom already due to the home-office-situation of the past years. Theater ANU now teases out the hidden creative potential of zoom. We use video sequences, direct interaction with the audience as well as virtuell effects to create the atmosphere of a live experience even in times of social dinstancing.
Background
PERPETUUM – city without hardship was produced in 2018 as a venue specific commissioned production for Bad Karlshafen, a baroque german city. In 2019, some changes in the production were made, so that it is now possible to perform PERPETUUM in every city. From 2020 on we have taken the next step and have been working on a PERPETUUM online show.
Stay tuned!
