CRYSTAL HEAVEN LOUNGE [2019]

immersive theatre installation @bar gelegenheiten
by DENIALOFSERVICE.FAIL @48H NEUKÖLLN FESTIVAL 2019, berlin
wanja neite: co-creation, performance

“in 2084, germany is ruled by a computer. the ID chip is implanted at birth, social ranking, centralized platforms – everything actually happened exactly as it had to. but in the basement of a bar in neukölln, a community of has come together that has found its last great freedom in consensual self-exploitation. the “wachenden” fill a gap that no algorithm, plug-in or application can fill. they satisfy the deepest and most abysmal desires and hopes, they are in contact with their initiated customers via cams. these people are not hangers-on, they are not hustlers and hookers, but people of conviction – the guardians of a bastion of the deeply human.”

a performance installation in which the audience is immersed in a detailed staged reality. here, all layers of virtuality and reality flow into one another and allow deep insights into the motivations of people in search of meaning – of autonomous empowerment.

PHOTOS BY SIMON SALEM MÜLLER / VG BILD-KUNST BONN

reviews:
“for me, the gesture of the fiction (…) points in the direction of reflexive sensitization to powerful human-technology structures. this is interesting, because – as in Black Mirror – the aim seems to be not only to raise awareness of how we are already closely interwoven with technologies in the cloak of future fictions, but also to show where the danger of a lack of digital literacy or even strategic ‘digital incapacitation’ (…) can lie.” (theresa schütz, affective-societies.de, FU berlin)

credits:
artistic ensemble: simon salem müller, marie s. zwinzscher, amanda babaei vieira, wanja neite, tatjana stelle polaris, georg bütow, antonio schmidt, camilla lønbirk
concept, idea: simon salem müller
costume: meeri hattifattener
site of production: gelegenheiten bar, westerstraße berlin
music & soundtrack: vetter+kralle

special thanks to: tilman gunz, christof kraus, fatima spiecker, arthur köstler
the shows took place on june 14th & 15th from 6pm to 1am at 48H NEUKÖLLN FESTIVAL 2019.