BLUR - 6 MINIATURES ABOUT BLURRINESS

A VIRTUAL THEATRICAL MUSIK-SCULPTURE by Sergej Maingardt, Jens Standke and Rosi Ulrich

Equipped with virtual reality glasses and headphones, you take a seat and immerse yourself in a theatre performance as if you were there in real-time. A huge screen spreads out above you, pictures fill the room, actors and musicians are close enough to touch. Voices and sound so deceptively real and yet only virtual?

The 360° VR installation BLUR leads you into the virtual experience of a music theatre production that was created in 2017/2018 as a live performance in the Orangerie Theater in the Volksgarten in Cologne.

The six miniatures of the theatre performance dealt with six areas on the subject of blurring (the links lead you to the individual miniatures of the theatre performance):

™1.6]DELTAx_PHYSICS (Heisenberg's Blur Relation),
™2.6]Paralyzed_PSYCHOLOGY (bystander effect)

™3.6]HypeReal_PHOTOGRAPHY (Fake News)
™4.6]AND:OR:NOT_FUZZY LOGIC (Logic)

™5.6]Smart Factory_ECONOMY (Smart Home)
™6.6]Sovereign uncertainty_POLITICS (Bundestag election 2017)

360-degree video: Jens Standke; Composition/Sounddesign: Sergej Maingardt; Production: Rosi Ulrich
(cast of the real performances see here BLUR)

UA of the theatrical VR installation:
10. October 2018, 11.-14.10.2018, as part of URBÄNG! the Festival of the Freihandelszone in the Orangerie Theater im Volksgarten, 16. June 2019, Kunsthof Galm, Brandenburg, as part of JÄTEN IM PARADIES

™1.6]DELTAx_Physics

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

with: Fabian Ringel / Voices: Karin Kettling, Oliver Schnelker / Electronics: Sergej Maingardt
Artistic direction: concept/composition/music: Sergej Maingardt, video art: Jens Standke, text/concept: Rosi Ulrich, director: Andrea Bleikamp
Costume: Claus Stump, costume production: Andrea Uebel, Production management: Hannah Greve, Technique: Jens Kuklik, PR & Public relations: neurohr & andrä

We find ourselves in an ambiguous situation that is difficult to assess, the observation of others does not open up a meaningful approach to action. There is no indication of correct behaviour, a misinterpretation is quite probable. People have always sought truth, struggled with it, held on to it, defended it, and in the end are desperate for it. Certainly they were in the mythical times, but today this security is like a washed-out photograph that, as an image of reality, is only suitable for stimulating the images in one's own mind.

Let's get to the bottom of the origins and trace the causalities into today. The path leads back to the mythical discoveries of the 20th century. We look for the traces of history, like a physicist who wants the quantum to appear in the cloud chamber, and encounter events, individual singularities - we connect these points in the belief in linear processes and causal relationships. Assemble them like a photography. This is how we write history. And how much we hope not to fail.

We look at the faded photograph, which is supposed to be an image from the past, but is still only a trace into the future. And the longer we look at it, the less we seem to recognize it - image dot or pixel - no difference can be discerned. Our technical and, consequently, economic achievements depend on the settlings of the early 20th century. As Werner Heisenberg, for example, with a youthful freshness that resembled to have the nerve of an impertinence, he postulated the principle of the uncertainty principle, which asserts that objects in the atomic realm do not emerge until we try to look at them - but do we not all consist of elementary particles?

These settlements, however, extend far beyond the present day into the near future as the spectre of an automated, man-made industry 4.0, which, freed from all classical thinking - in physics as in life - succeeds with the help of improbabilities in achieving a higher precision than classical science - and even in a shorter time.

™2.6]Paralyzed_PSYCHOLOGY

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

We find ourselves in an ambiguous situation which is difficult to assess, the observation of others gives no indication of the correct behaviour. A misinterpretation, a misconduct, is quite probable. People are still searching for truth, struggling with it, holding on to it. They defend it and in the end they are desperate of the many faces of this truth, which is called history and yet is only politics.

There no longer seem to be any causal relationships - only individual discrete events that are joined together in the brains to form a continuous line. This series of historical events forms a catastrophic movement that sweeps people away to spit them out again in an uncertain future.

The longer we look at the blurred photography that is supposed to be an image of this past, the less we seem to recognize it. For it was only through photography itself that the fuzziness came into the picture: this idea of a subjective perception, a gap between two stable states, the image of the non-visible.

In this gap, this ambiguous situation that is difficult to assess, it hits the vague people who, due to the great uncertainty, are unable to arrive at any moral knowledge or ethical evaluation of the situation. Let us get to the bottom of the origins and follow the motives. Thousands of times we look at the images of this one unheard-of event and yet we do not recognize any meaningful approach to action, nothing that could testify to elementary value. Like the image of an insecure mass of people in the midst of an overbooked plane facing a great sharpness in the implementation of commercial and political interests. An invisible but clearly defined goal of profit maximization seems to be pursued here. But the question of whether a sovereign blurriness can be deduced from this dilemma will only be answered in the future, in a future in which wave and particle, observer and actor will merge into a third.

™3.6]HypeReal_PHOTOGRAPHY

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

We look at the blurred photography and vaguely remember the unpleasant feeling of having found ourselves in an ambiguous situation that is difficult to assess. The observation of the others gave no indication of a correct assessment of the events. Misconduct could not be avoided. The disgust at the images of violence dug deeper traces into the continuum of events than the experience itself. How could we have known what had actually happened?

In search of the truth, it got lost in the images and dragged people through history in an enormous catastrophic movement - as if to spit them out in a future whose images remained immensely familiar and at the same time disturbingly mysterious.

The exploration of causalities and the hope of recognizing linear processes took us back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the youthful freshness of science suddenly lost its face in the fatal connection that physics had to make with politics. Like the quantum that, with the help of an enormous amount of energy, jump from one track to another across the nothing, quantum jumps of violence, destruction, and arbitrariness were breaking through and produced a whirling movement that finally brought us under the eyes of the others to the limits of our own ability to act in an overbooked plane. Had we learned to deal with the images in the turbulence of events, or would they continue to fade away the closer we look at them?

™4.6]AND:OR:NOT_FUZZY LOGIC

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

We are in a clear system, zero one, yes no, on off, either or determine our view. Clear distinctions define our perception. To name something means to distinguish it from something else. That gives security. We are for or against, there is right or left. That makes it clear and unambiguous - simple! It helps to survive: Friend or enemy, danger or security. Fair or unfair, luck or misfortune, wave or particle. Precisely delimitable with sharp edges and dividing lines. A third must not exist. For already in the revelations of St. John chapter 3, 15 to 17 it says: "I know what you are doing. I know that you are neither warm nor cold. If you were at least one of them! But you are neither warm nor cold; you are lukewarm. Therefore I will spit you out of my mouth." And so the anger of God hits vague people, for they are not punished like sinners, but they are spit out and excluded from the community.

Whereas in Aristotle's world there was a clear distinction between things: what is one cannot be another at the same time: that is, not man and woman at the same time, today hybrids populate our world, hybrid forms, hybrid beings, cyborgs, crossbreeds, interacting implants, intersex. Fuzzy Logic is the theory behind modern mixed forms, a logic based on fuzzy belonging to different sets. It knows the two sides of a distinction, but also the whole infinite middle in between and the flowing nuances between true and false. The Fuzzy Logic recognizes that there can be both an "either - or" and a "both - and". Because vagueness not only saves costs, it can even be useful. Strategically, vagueness is used, for example, in politics. The more openly interpretive and vague the political statements are, the more possibilities for connection are offered and the less voters are put off. Machines with artificial intelligence, adaptive systems, automation and control technologies have been using fuzzy logic for decades to bring about stable and rapid decisions. They create the smart home, smart automobiles, smart production lines with smart products and smart decisions that determine when it's time to leave a system before we even think about it.

™5.6]Smart Factory_ECONOMY

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

We find ourselves in multivariable situations, starting and target values can be interpreted in many ways. The observation of others is outsourced and is evaluated and constantly updated by complex algorithms. Causal relationships have given way to a stream of interpretations. New results, columns of numbers define the hierarchies of above and below, of good and bad. They have already become moral instances and determine future action. The opportunities for one's own career, for political decisions and election programmes are measured by these rankings and repeatedly adjusted to them. In their deep trust in adaptive networks, people have handed over the search for truth to intelligent systems. These systems enter into the depths of images. In the photographies, they search pixel by pixel for errors and manipulations until they reach the smooth surface and deliver high definition images of artificial narrations. Like the paradox of quantum physics, in which probabilities determine the occurrence of events and parallel universes are quite possible, humans move simultaneously in different worlds that are both real and artificial.

The hope of recognising linear processes once led us back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the youthful freshness of progress in a seemingly naïve gesture connected science and politics and pushed people through history in a maelstrom of violence, destruction and arbitrariness. Implicated in a net of dependencies, it finally spits them out in an all-embracing comfort zone where the objects can speak and follow moral principles. Whereas in the past commercial interests led to overbooked aircraft, today people have become a part of the value chain, which places them in the gentle chains of omnipresent smart production and connects them with robots and machines

™6.6]Souvereign Blurriness_POLITICS

360° - Video - to move: hold the curser and move over the picture

TEASER

We went back to the origins in the early 20th century when quantum physics broke the causal chains and discontinuity began to determine events. We had to realize that fuzzy logic, with its ambiguous flowing assignments, is the logical answer to a world of hybrids, cyborgs and miscellaneous beings and has contributed significantly to the acceleration of technological development. The washed-out photography of the last century, when youthful freshness changed the world in grandiose naivity, has already given way to the manipulated universe of high-definitioned sharp images whose stranded information content refers to the diversity of possible interpretations. In the near future, connected systems will process thousands of the truths contained in the individual images and thus create a moral authority. In this near future man lives in a smart welfare paradise that already fulfils his future needs in the present and extinguishes the thought of contradiction long before it is born.

"But today we are still in a radical transformation. Digitalization and political upheaval change everything. Not only Germany, but the whole world is at the beginning of a new era. We believe that we will also need a new way of thinking for this new age. A thinking free of prejudices, free of habits, free of 'That's how we always did it'. A way of thinking that is directed forward and that does not seek solutions in the past. For we are in a state of transition, that's for sure. And the possibilities it offers are just as secure. Let us use them. Let us strengthen people's faith in themselves! Our country needs courage, fresh ideas and new determination.

Our cultural life is unique and our country is more democratic, open, modern and free today than ever before. We are proud of our democratic constitutional state, which puts human dignity first. We fight for these values. We are a country with an unmistakable, strong identity that offers its people home and support even in turbulent times. We must show our colours for democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law and Europe.  Let us stand up for the values that have made our country and Europe strong and livable: human dignity, justice and equality, freedom and democracy".

Presse

We take a seat on beanbags, like the visitors of the real theatre evening, let ourselves fall and look at the ceiling, covered with semi-transparent canvas, on which the physical explanations are illustrated with abstract sequences of images. Driven by pulsating minimalistic electroscores, particles and electrons represented as white dots form and condense into ever new formations. Even if physicists are not necessarily able to speak out enlightened when Heisenberg's fuzziness or Schrödinger's cat is spoken of next time, a hunch remains that the so-called reality is perhaps not as concrete and factual as it seemed a moment ago. Is perception merely the human attempt to create patterns and make sense in order to distract oneself from the prospect of incoherent chaos?

Textauszug

We find ourselves in an ambiguous situation that is difficult to assess, the observation of others does not open up a meaningful approach for action. There is no indication of correct behaviour, a misinterpretation is quite probable. People have always searched for truth, struggled with it, held on to it, defended it and in the end are desperate about it. Certainly they were in the mythical times, but today this security is like a washed-out photograph that, as an image of reality, is only suitable for stimulating the images in one's own mind.

Let's get to the bottom of the origins and trace the causalities into today. The path leads back to the mythical discoveries of the 20th century.

We look for the traces of history, like a physicist who wants the quantum to appear in the cloud chamber, and encounter events, individual singularities - we connect these points in the belief in linear processes and causal relationships. Assemble them like a photograph. This is how we write history. And how much we hope not to fail.

We look at the faded photography, which is supposed to be an image from the past, but is still only a trace into the future. And the longer we look at it, the less we seem to recognize - image dot or pixel - no difference can be noticed.

Our technical and, consequently, economic achievements depend on the settlings of the early 20th century. For example, when Werner Heisenberg, with a youthful freshness that resembled to have the nerve of an impertinence, postulated the principle of the uncertainty principle, which claims that objects in the atomic realm only emerge when we try to look at them (but the closer we look at them, the more fleeting their condition is) - But do we not all consist of elementary particles?

Diese Setzungen aber reichen über die heutige Gegenwart weit hinaus in eine nahe Zukunft als das Schreckgespenst einer automatisierten, von Menschen erlösten Industrie 4.0, der, befreit von allem klassischen Denken -in der Physik wie im Leben-, mit Hilfe von Unwahrscheinlichkeiten eine höhere Präzision als der klassischen Wissenschaft gelingt - und das auch noch in kürzerer Zeit.

In the schedule of WEHR51, produced 2018 by the theater-51grad.com, in cooperation with Freihandelszone - ensemblenetzwerk köln
The VR version was sponsored by: NRW KULTURsekretariat, Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, (see here for the sponsors of the theater performance) BLUR)

BLUR - 6 MINIATURES ABOUT BLURRINESS

Fotos: ©Jens Standke

Presse

Textauszug