DARUM (Victoria Halper & Kai Krösche)
[EOL]. End of Life
A virtual ruinscape
What should happen to our digital heritage? In [EOL]. End of Life, the directing duo DARUM have created dramaturgically and technically impressive virtual realities where they invite us to make decisions about the continued existence of a fictitious ‘Metaverse 1.0’.
In [EOL]. End of Life, Victoria Halper and Kai Krösche prove that a limited space of 9.6 square metres can become an incalculable metaverse. Because as soon as participants have put on their VR-goggles, a fictitious major corporation dispatches them to a digital landscape of ruins to decide which data are to be allowed to continue and which should be irretrievably deleted. Among other data, they come across echoes of bygone existences that have developed a life of their own over time. In their technically, aesthetically and thematically perfectly aligned work, DARUM skilfully blur the limits of perception and confront participants with the question of which traces are left behind by a human life and who will one day determine their own digital heritage.
Statement of the Jury
Virtual reality has arrived in the theatre, even if both are still often wary of each other. This VR-experience by the duo DARUM (Victoria Halper and Kai Krösche) looks at virtual worlds, and more specifically at the remnants of our daily interactions in the web: Memories of ephemera that never fade. How many of these data heaps can the net endure? Do we have any kind of responsibility for them? Could we even – love them? When audience members put on a pair of VR-goggles, they receive an area of 9.6m². The company IRL (Imaginary Reality Landscapes) then asks them to check virtual ruins that have not been accessed for a long time. The task is to decide what should be permanently deleted and what is to be absorbed into the metaverse. But then, the virtual realm takes the examiners hostage, and a deeply moving story unfolds; a story that tests our relationship with digital legacies and sets new standards of virtual storytelling. Is this still theatre or is it theatre yet?
Video statement from jury member Martin Thomas Pesl (in German)
Programme booklet (pdf, 1 MB)
Pressestimmen
‘Borderline brilliant’
Helmut Ploebst (Der Standard)
Credits
Direction & story Victoria Halper & Kai Krösche (DARUM) 3D design & virtual set design Mark Surges Music Arthur Fussy Live stage design Matthias Krische Texts Kai Krösche Character design & animation, costume design, photogrammetry scanning, motion capturing & video Victoria Halper 3D object animation Kai Krösche, Mark Surges Creative coding, motion capturing, lighting design & additional sound design Kai Krösche Drawings (school) Alexander Tingrui Wülferth Testing & artistic feedback David Rosenberg, Matthias Krische, Matthias Seier, Arthur Fussy, Armin Kirchner et al. Cast Victoria Halper, Kai Krösche, James Stanson
Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (MA7) and the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport
The artistic conceptual work on [EOL]. End of Life was supported by a scholarship from the Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe.
The guest performance in Berlin is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin.
Dates & Tickets
May 2025
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 €
35 € * Artist talk at 15:30
Gropius Bau Berlin
Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin
Info
Artist Talk (Nachtgespräch)
Sunday, 18.5.2025, 15:30 at Haus der Berliner Festspiele
Impulse: Ricardo Sarmiento Ramirez (IF 2018)
Jury member: Martin Thomas Pesl
Moderation: Xenia Sircar
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[EOL]. End of Life
A virtual ruinscape
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