The question of who or what has to be represented draws wider circles than most assemblies with their focus on humans. In his fundamental critique of modernity, the sociologist of science Bruno Latour sketched out a “parliament of things” as early as 1989, in which people, animals, plants, and objects jointly determine how they even could decide and how they want to live together. Thirty years later, Latour sums up, “The question is no longer to grand rights to non-humans, but to accept to be dependent on them.” But what does that actually mean? How can non-human representation look like, what would be a non-anthropocentric assembly? In the 15th edition of The Art of Assembly the theatre group andcompany&Co. praises the intelligence of insects and considers renaming itself ANTCOMPANY, while philosopher Eva von Redecker proposes a “revolution for life” in order to escape the prison of capitalism and find new forms of solidarity: Care instead of domination, regeneration instead of utilization, participation instead of exploitation.
XV: Parliaments of Things and Beings (Eva von Redecker, Alexander Karschnia/andcompany&Co. & Florian Malzacher)
From Lenin to Lennon, von Karl Marx to Karl May … With excessive puns and exuberant pop-quotations, andcompany&Co. from Berlin has been producing unmistakable political theater for almost 20 years: communism, capitalism, colonialism – and the politics of the day are in the mix. The group’s name already is a manifesto in a nutshell: Since their formation in Frankfurt/M. in 2003 by Alexander Karschnia, Nicola Nord and Sascha Sulimma, they have created a vast network of artistic and political collaborators. All works are developed in co-authorship with all participants. Like no other group of their generation, they combine dada-humour, pop-culture, historical seriousness and political activism: from the gold diggers’ city Mahagonny that Brecht described to the technological “singularity” that Heiner Müller feared in his late life, from the Stalinist nightmare to Walt Disney’s dream world, from the mythological roots of Europe to the contemporary situation at the borders – all of andcompany’s works are trips in the manifold meaning of the word (territorial, historical, psychological). Next to performance pieces in the context of the independent scene (HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Forum Freies Theater FFT, Mousonturm etc.) and lecture-concerts they produce theater plays with ensembles of state theaters (Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz) and radio-plays. Their works have been shown on festivals all around the world from Brussels to Shanghai.
Eva von Redecker is a poltical philosopher working on theories of property, social change and (un)freedom. In 2020/21 she held a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at PoliTeSse Centre (University of Verona). Her project investigated the connection between authoritarianism and possessive individualism, building on the notion of “phantom possession” proposed in “Ownership‘s Shadow” (Critical Times 3:1, 2020). Eva von Redecker‘s earlier PhD work on social change resulted in the monograph Praxis and Revolution (Columbia UP, 2021). Besides her academic work, she also writes public philosophy and literary essays; her general audience book on new forms of protest, Revolution für das Leben, was published in 2020 in German and is being translated into French, Korean, Spanish and Greek.
Gesellschaftsspiele. The Art of Assembly is a series of lectures and conversations on the potential of assemblies in activism, art and politics hosted by Florian Malzacher. Former and future guests include Judith Butler, Jodie Dean, Radha D`Souza, Didier Eribon, Max Haiven, Oliver Marchart, Alia Mossallam, Chantal Mouffe, Sibylle Peters, Milo Rau, Oliver Ressler, Jonas Staal & Dana Yahalomi. The series is produced by brut Wien, in cooperation with Münchner Kammerspiele, Wiener Festwochen and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.
Whether in Tunis, Cairo, Madrid, or Lisbon, in Athens, New York, London, or Istanbul, in post-Fukushima Tokyo, in the midst of Niemeyer’s iconic parliamentary architecture in Brasilia, under the umbrellas of Hong Kong, or on the streets of Minneapolis: social and political movements of recent years have often been characterised by their search for alternative forms of gathering, of arguing and making decisions, of negotiating community and society. The potential of these assemblies lies in more than just the demands they put forward; many of them change reality merely by practicing radical models of democracy.
The arts have also shown a renewed interest in concepts of gathering and creating public spheres in which society is not only mirrored but constantly tried out, performed, tested, reimagined, or even reinvented. There are court hearings on artistic freedom, religion, and censorship; tribunals on exploitation and violence; summits on climate change or cultural policy; parliaments allowing those who are usually silenced to speak... Theatre in particular has become a stage for assemblies on the fine line between art and reality, a democratic arena of radical imagination.
But what is the future this concept of gathering has ahead of it after months in a state of emergency that has thrown pretty much all areas of social life out of step? Gesellschaftsspiele: The Art of Assembly brings together protagonists from various fields of art, politics and theory to speculate on the future of assembly in a time of experiencing that nothing is certain – a time in which every form of physical togetherness has become precarious.
Florian Malzacher is a curator, dramaturg and writer. 2013-2017 he was artistic director of Impulse Theater Festival (Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mulheim/Ruhr), and 2006–2012 co-programmer of the multidisciplinary arts festival steirischer herbst (Graz). He (co-)curated e.g. the 4th and 5th International Summer Academy (Mousonturm Frankfurt, 2002 and 2004), “Dictionary of War” (2006/07), “Truth is concrete” (Graz, 2012), “Artist Organisations International” (HAU Berlin, 2015), “Appropriations” (Ethnological Museum Berlin, 2014), “Sense of Possibility” on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the revolution (St. Petersburg, 2017), “Training for the Future” (Ruhrtriennale 2018/19 with Jonas Staal), “After Supervising the Machinery” (2020). As a dramaturge he worked with artists like Rimini Protokoll (DE), Lola Arias (ARG), Mariano Pensotti (ARG), and Nature Theater of Oklahoma (USA). Florian Malzacher has edited and written numerous essays and books on theatre and performance and on the relationship between art and politics. His latest publications include Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute im Alexander Verlag Berlin. florianmalzacher.tumblr.com
Florian Malzacher. Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2020.
Former guest Didier Eribon Chantal Mouffe, Sibylle Peters, Julia Ramírez-Blanco, Milo Rau, Oliver Ressler, Dana Yahalomi / Public Movement, Jodi Dean, Jonas Staal and many more Curated by Florian Malzacher
The Art of Assembly – Gesellschaftsspiele, a series by Florian Malzacher and brut Wien, in cooperation with Münchner Kammerspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (Berlin), BIT Teatergarasjen / METEOR 2021 and Goethe-Institut / Performing Architecture.
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