MEDIATHEK

//With English / German subtitles

What happens when I say “I”? What occurs in the brain? The speaker and the spoken-to tacitly agree that the speaker is referring to themself. But what transpires in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers of nerve tracts that connect the millions of neurons that are linked by billions of synapses?

Human research is currently having another go at creating models and reconstructions of the workings of the human brain. The two major projects at the moment – one North American and one European – focus primarily on a digital model of the brain in action. Whether or not the act of saying “I” can be digitally displayed by the time the European project ends in 2023 – the majority of European neurologists have their doubts.

Since ancient times, humankind has asked the question of what ‘I’ is: how body and soul interact, later re-formulated as the dualism between body and mind. How can consciousness arise from organic matter, the brain? Modern brain research seemed to take up the legacy of philosophy in their attempt to answer these questions as it began to locate and analyse nerves and their cells. Since then MRI scans of the brain have also become everyday business in medical practice. But what do we really know about the way our brain works and what can neuroscience tell us about the subjective consciousness of individuals?

“Brain Projects” works out theatrical arrangements for brain modeling; the thinking about oneself as an observational and hopelessly clueless process. Rimini Protokoll presents three very different approaches to the questions above. Scientific hypotheses and individual biographies are woven into stories about what we know about ourselves – and what we don’t.

Concept / Text / Direction: Helgard Kim Haug, Daniel Wetzel

with Lobna Allamii, Felix Hasler, Irini Skaliora

Stage design: Heike Gallmeier
Music / composition: Barbara Morgenstern
Dramaturgy: Jörg Bochow
Video Design: Marc Jungreithmeier
Video Animation: Grit Schuster
Research / Dramaturgy Assistance: Linn Günther
Assistance: Hannah Greve
Stage Design Assistance: Johanna Zawieracz
Intern: Marc Villanueva
Production Management: Heidrun Schlegel

A production by the German Deutschen SchauSpielhaus Hamburg with Rimini Apparat
With the support of the Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.
Production Rights: schaefersphilippen Theater and Medien GbR

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