«Alright so here we are in front of the elephants.
The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks.
And that’s, that’s cool. And that is pretty much all there is to say.»
These are the first words ever to be spoken on YouTube. They belong to a 18 seconds long video uploaded in 2005 in which a man in a zoo stands in front of the elephant’s cage and speaks these words into a camera. From our perspective today these words could be understood as an unintentional manifesto for the future of the online video platform. Since then YouTube has become of one the biggest players in the attention economy. In the logic of the platform everything: violent scenes, extreme political positions, human suffering and joy, fake news, the unboxing of a product or images of natural catastrophes become an excuse to sell advertisement.
EPISODIO is inspired from the paralysing feeling of emptiness and confusion that can be felt after spending hours being led by an algorithm from one video to the next. How does the logics and discourses of the neoliberal market manage to infiltrate our personal narratives of the world? What is reality? What are only videos? Where are the limits?
Federico Vöcks de Schwindt and his ensemble develop with lightness and dark humor an episodic multi-language recount, that through associative interconnections leads us through the life fragments of a series of characters. Sometimes tragically, sometimes absurdly, these characters try to find their way in a world in which each step is inevitably influenced and exploited by the market. Life is the new normal!
A production by Federico Vöcks de Schwindt in coproduction with TD in cooperation with TATWERK | Performative Forschung
Dates
Streaming: «Between Us»
April 22nd 2021 | 8:30 pm
TATWERK | Berlin / On Twitch
»Between Us« invites selected artists to realize independent, digital and discursive formats within their own work processes explicitly designed for streaming.
Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Premiere:
December 10th 2021 | 20 Uhr
TD Berlin | Tickets
Weitere Vorstellungen:
December 11th - 12th 2021
TD Berlin | Tickets