24-26.March ZKM
The European Platform THE NEXT Renaissance
from the EIT Culture & Creativity

Friday 24.03.2023:

• 16:00–16:30: Bernd Fesel - Symposium EIT Culture & Creativity. Media Theater
• 16:30–16:45: Nicolas Ehler - Goethe Paris The Next Renaissance 2024. Media Theater
• 16:45−18:15: Bernd Fesel, Michael Resch, Alexander Mankowsky, Daria Tataj, John Palmesino, Francesca Bria. - Symposium The Next Renaissance. Media Theater
• 19:00: Peter Weibel - Vernissage Renaissance 3.0

Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus

Interactive Presentation & The Tempest at Home

The event will be organised in two parts, the first part will serve as a conceptual framework for the second part.

Part 1. Interactive presentation

The management team of the Foundation will make a brief presentation of the path and trajectory of La Fura dels Baus, the renowned international theatre company known for its capacity for innovation, adaptation, rhythm, evolution and transgression. Throughout their prolific professional career, they have helped to redefine the performative space by moving its performances to non-conventional ones – and, therefore, changing the public role from passive to active, which has ultimately meant the final breaking of the “fourth wall”. The incessant curiosity and the need to explore new artistic trends have helped them to develop a unique language, style and aesthetic, through a process of collective creation. Throughout 40 years La Fura dels Baus has developed a method that goes beyond individualities and it is articulated around collective work and the amalgamation of talent. Its willingness to transfer this methodology and language led the company to create Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus, a R+D+I laboratory aiming for the horizontal collaboration between Humanities, Science and Technology.

During the conference it will be reviewed the trajectory of the Fura dels Baus until Épica was born in 2017. The evolution and complexity of the path followed during the first five years of the Foundation will be explained by bringing hands-on scientific neuroscience and cognition experiments live at ZKM. Through them the audience will experience in first person some of the processes carried out within Epica’s projects that have allowed the participating scientists to extract data for their research.

The presentation will be fully interactive, and the audience will participate actively in it by using Kalliope, the new transmedia storytelling tool developed by Epica that will enable a second layer of interaction with the audience. Kalliope will also introduce Part 2. Tempest at Home in which it will be a main character.

Part 2. “The Tempest at home” based on William Shakespeare’s script.

“The Tempest at home: live interaction” is a hybrid event that combines broadcasted content and live digital interaction. On the one hand, it will be broadcasted the masterpiece “La Tempestad en Casa” co-produced with the Festival Internacional Cervantino for its 48 edition. On the other hand, integrating live digital content redesigned for the ZKM event through Kalliope app.

During the event, Kalliope will act as a second narrative, able to interact live with the whole audience, promoting audience active participation through their smartphones with the broadcasted content, object and the other attendees.

The audience will receive information, content and instructions in their smartphone to create group dynamics, live rituals, and game strategies, among others.

About “La Tempestad en Casa”

“La Tempestad en Casa” was a collective, virtual and remote experiment carried out in co-production with the National Theater Company of Mexico, with the participation of the CNT cast and Young Creators of FONCA.

18 artists from the cast of the National Theater Company of Mexico, including actors, musicians and dancers,10 audiovisual artists who were beneficiaries of the National Theater Company Program of the National Fund for Culture and Arts of Mexico, and the artistic and technical team of Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus, composed by engineers, video artists, philosophers, set designers and producers have collaborated in this project that was presented on October 18, 2020 within the framework of the 48th edition of the International Cervantino Festival.

The project takes as reference the classic of literature The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the common link and the ideal architecture to make joint work possible. The reflection on revenge, forgiveness, repentance and above all a work around colonialism are mixed with a colorful aesthetic that gives voice to the customs and traditions of Mexican folklore.

The performance, co-created in less than 20 sessions, hybridizes digital techniques and live staging. The different videoconferencing platforms used for the project forced its participants, most of them in a confinement situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico, to take advantage of their own environment, to reinvent the domestic space as a space for creation and use all its own resources to generate this work without borders.