MEDIATHEK

The notion of Anthropocene, although coined already in the 1980s, has only recently become the catchphrase of a scientific community turned political. Its proponents understand the present as the first independent geological epoch that is actively shaped by human influence, with climate change as the most compelling evidence. Theater, on the other hand, historically has almost exclusively dealt with human relations, leaving the environment as a mere backdrop for the display of social issues. With environmental issues becoming social issues in times of the Anthropocene, the theater has to re-think its place as a medium of critique. The Anthropocene not only warrants a change of topics but a revolution of form, a new aesthetics that is able to handle the challenges of this epoch. This is why, in the ANTHROPOSCENE project the environment is an actor on stage, an equal participant in the theatrical dialog. Using technologies from the fields of computer vision and artificial intelligence, and a radical approach to materiality, the theater space is transformed into a laboratory that, unlike Buckminster Fuller‘s famous spaceship earth, has at least some emergency exits. The setting, however, is the same as on the planetary scale: a closed space full of people, limited time, and uncertain results. ANTHROPOSCENE is a collaboration of German choreographer Jan Rohwedder, French composer Laurent Durupt, and US-based computer artist Fabian Offert.