Intimacy of Strangers
Eine immersive Installation aus Sprache, Licht und Klang
Premiere: Dramatiker*innen-Festival Graz 2023
Text and Installation: Lisa Horvath
Audioregie: Victoria Fux
Sounddesign und Musik: Philipp Streicher
Sprecher*innen: Nadja Brachvogel, Martin Brachvogel, Julia Gräfner, Vera Hagemann
Produkion: DRAMA FORUM by uniT
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The fundamental question today is not just who we are, but rather what we are capable of becoming.
Rosi Braidotti
In „Intimacy of Strangers“ betrachten Sie die Bilder nicht von Außen, sie werden Teil des Bildes. Die Leinwand wird zu einer fluiden und ephemeren Landschaft zwischen Realität und (Science) Fiktion, die sich durch Ihre Anwesenheit transformiert. Im Terrain in dem Sie sich befinden werden Sie auf Objekte stoßen, die wie Steine aussehen aber sich wie Körper anfühlen. Sie werden zu Ihnen sprechen, wenn Sie es wagen Ihr Ohr auf sie zu legen. Sie werden verbündeten Fremden begegnen. Nicht-menschliche und nicht-organische Kreaturen begegnen Ihnen in einer immer dagewesenen Intimität. Und bald werden Sie bemerken, dass sie sich in einem Karussell befinden das sich in Zeitlupe nach oben in die Zukunft schraubt.
Concept - English
„Intimacy of Strangers" is an immersive audio and video installation that invites visitors to immerse themselves in a large inflatable cushion functioning as a canvas for a flow of moving images. Positioned within this inflatable surface, participants become integral to a fluid and ephemeral landscape, intricately linked and synchronized with their movements. Effectively becoming part of a moving painting, stone-inspired cushions, housing embedded speakers, are distributed across the inflatable surface. Only by placing one's ear on these cushions can one hear the voices emanating from within.
The project features four lyrical short texts authored by Horvath exploring encounters and transformations with and into the non-human. These texts delve into attempts to engage in dialogue with both organic and non-organic entities. Influenced by theories and perspectives from Posthumanism and New Materialism, particularly those of key proponents Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Lynn Margulis, the texts are titled "Becoming Plant," "Becoming Animal," "Becoming Earth," and "Becoming Machine.“
Each text is a product of a writing practice inspired by the concept of "Dis-Identification," a conscious effort to estrange oneself from the familiar to achieve a heightened awareness of one's own position and self, as described by Rosi Braidotti. This method aligns with Braidotti's politics of location and situated knowledge, challenging the traditional Western concept of the individual as a static and closed subject. Instead, it proposes a view of the self as open, relational, and multi-layered—subjects constantly under construction, always in a state of becoming.
The poetry and installation of "Intimacy of Strangers“ incorporates and translates these philosophical understandings into Horvath’s artistic practice of writing and filming, in order to share this experiential journey with other humans. This installation is not just an exploration but an experiential transformation—a curious endeavor in becoming other.
