a post(operatic)-apocalyptic video game essay
with music by ole hübner
and texts by thomas köck
based on the opera opera, opera, opera! revenants&revolutions
The (in)ability of collective action, prognoses of the future, emerging utopias: In Thomas Köck’s text, a chorus of the last humans meets a cyborg. The final act takes place in an abandoned opera house ... Accompanied by an inner voice, the users wander through a landscape that tells of the disappearance of the present and of a society that can only think of the future as a catastrophe.
opera – a future game is an interactive digital music-theatre videogame essay based on an opera project that was interrupted in the wake of a pandemic. Fragments of the production, sets, costumes, orchestral and video recordings are transformed in this haunting digital version into a playable, proliferating archive, an immersive hybrid of gaming situation and interactive video art. For the Vienna Edition, Thomas Köck and Michael v. zur Mühlen will explore the representations of human bodies in digital environments in a 5-day research project on motion capture processes and expand the work previously presented at Essen Zollverein and Dresden HELLERAU, among others, to include a further performative level. The results will be shown as an analogue/digital happening and a mixture of collective Let's Play, Physical Theatre and Lecture Performance on the stage of the Burgtheater.
Game design, direction and animation: Michael v. zur Mühlen
Space and set design: Martin Miotk
Camera and editing: Stefan Bischoff
Sound design: Paul Hauptmeier and Martin Recker
Programming Unreal Engine/Mocap: Hannes Stolle
A cooperation of the NRW KULTURsekretariat and the Next Level Festival for Games
with HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts
Premiere 25.11.2022, Next Level Festival Essen / 24.3.2023 Festspielhaus Hellerau
Developed in cooperation with LEFX GmbH from Leipzig.
Supported by DOCKdigital Berlin
The motion caption suits were funded as part of a project grant from DOCK11 through tanz:digital, a funding programme of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland as part of NEUSTART KULTUR, and are now also available to this project.
Other stations so far: A MAZE./ Berlin, ZIMMT Leipzig, Münchner Kammerspiele
With visual and sound recordings by: Michael Taylor, Robert Sellier, Michael Zehe, Miriam Knackstedt, Philine Götz, Damien Rebgetz, Halle Opera Choir, Halle Opera Children's and Youth Choir, Halle State Orchestra.
MDR KLASSIK production of excerpts from the opera, September 2020 in Halle.
Musical direction: Michael Wendeberg
Sound engineer: Michael Leverkus
The underlying work opera, opera, opera! revenants&revolutions is a commission and libretto by the City of Munich for the Munich Biennale
Co-production of the Munich Biennale with Oper Halle 2020–2022
