24/11/2018 - 21/04/2019 @ SGT: Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll): “Bubble Jam”. :)

Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll): “Bubble Jam” | 24/11/2018 - 21/04/2019 | Onassis Cultural Centre

“Bubble Jam” leads a group into an experiment with itself. On this digital stage, the characters don’t exist in space, but on our screens. We follow and respond to their messages. Who is it on the other end? And who are we in this cloud?

"Who is on the other end of the internet and what are the processes between us when communicating online?" Asking this question, Daniel Wetzel, founding member of the internationally acclaimed Rimini Protokoll, sets up a show for the peers of YouTube; for those who use messengers despite the age restriction; for the upcoming generation of digital natives. We, as is usually in theatre, meet in the same space, yet this time a large part of the stage design has been converted into code. An interactive play and an experiment among us, Bubble Jam invites its visitors to act as members of a cloud that explores itself. How are joint decisions made? What happens when algorithms enter that process? And who or what do we “like” and “follow”?

Credits:

Concept and Direction: Daniel Wetzel Written by: Daniel Wetzel, Nikolas Hanakoulas, Giorgos Panagiotakis Space: Dido Gkogkou Light: Guy Stefanou Software System Design and Implementation, graphics: Dimitris Trakas (ViRA) Sound Design and Programming: Lambros Pigounis, Orestis Karamanlis Script editor, Operator: Andreas Andreou Coproduced by: Rimini Protokoll and Onassis Stegi Using technology that has been developed for the Rimini Protokoll project “Dreaming Collectives. Tapping Sheep”, written by Daniel Wetzel and Ioanna Valsamidou.

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Greek audiences are already familiar with Athens-based Daniel Wetzel (born 1969), as founding member of the leading European company Rimini Protokoll, who propose alternative formats on stage as well as site specific works. Rimini Protokoll have been creating groundbreaking projects often not with actors, but with "experts of their own lives.” This is the fourth time Rimini Protokoll collaborates with the Onassis Cultural Centre, presenting their work in Athens. Daniel Wetzel’s previous show at the Onassis Cultural Centre was "Evros Walk Water 1 & 2" , an installation based on the narrations and improvisations of unaccompanied immigrant minors. There it was already the audience that performed, instructed over headphones to perform John Cage’s composition Water Walk. Daniel Wetzel participated in the production "X Apartments Athens" (Fast Forward Festival 2), the peripatetic site-specific performance staged in houses in central Athens with his work “Odos Lithis 7” presenting a twin couple performing their piano play in the uncompleted apartment they had planned to live. In other performances presented in Greece, Rimini Protokoll have brought on stage “experts" like tour guides and archaeological site guards (Hot spots. I was here, Thiseion Theater, 2004); Indian call center operators (Calcutta in a box, Bios, 2009); fired muezins from Cairo (Radio Muezin, Athens Festival 2009); 103 inhabitants of Athens (Prometheus in Athens, Athens Festival, 2011); 20 people whose lives have been shaped by the global arms trade (Situation Rooms, OCC- Athens, 2014, Fast Forward Festival 1), international law and human rights specialists, a conservator of old manuscripts, a music producer blind since birth, an Israeli lawyer and a Turkish hip-hop / metalcore artist and ethnologist (OCC- Athens, "Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, volumes I & II", 2016). This time, again, nobody will be on stage but the audience.