MEDIATHEK

All things come to an end. Capitalism has reached its final phase, democratic systems are being challenged by populism, the open Internet is being repurposed as an algorithmic surveillance machine. Many IT millionaires are engaged in preparations for the time after the end of civilisation. The list of possible triggers for the apocalypse is long. THIS IS NOT A SWAN SONG - a music-theatre by Maciej Sledziecki and Marion Wörle, written for eight-part choir, performer, live-electronics, percussion, guitar, and sound-objects - is a multifaced reflection on „the end“. The piece is a consideration of that which is lost, is being lost, and that which should no longer be. The theme is reflected upon using the metaphor of the “swan song” as a starting point.
 The piece takes place in a post-apocalyptic bunker, which is inhabited by a bird-like creature. Scenes of survival, nostalgia, panic and rationalisation flow into a recurring ritual. But the routine of the bunker is disturbed and its processes interact with the choir members. The choir represents a ghost-world – it sings last words of deaceased people, latin names of extinct animals and plants, a fragmented translation of the last recordings of a died out Tasmanian language as well as scientific code.  
 THIS IS NOT A SWAN SONG forms a heterotopia – an “other“ place, which is undefined temporally and functions according to its own rules.