STEFAN KAEGI /
RIMINI PROTOKOLL (CH/D)
"f.l.t.r. -
Groups of Groups"
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Was have Australian nudists, Hungarian train workers, winners of Citigroup contests and the autism reasearch team in Guatemala in common?
They gathered to groups in front of cameras to transfer their faces into the internet. Within the medium of the individualists and the everytime-flexible the group picture seems to have a lasting value. We load ourselves up so others can download us. Into it, to see, how we have looked together.
The group picture is the opposite of logo. Where the logo synthesizes all parts within one image, within the group picture all parts survive next to each other, heterogeniously. A social barometer.
jailors, ping pong teams, exhaust gas research departments, the Florida Highway Patrol, the team of horse acrobat "Biel 1", or the Shaping-the-future-of-Scotland-Commitee ... - one by one they represent hierarchies, job relations, partnerships or models of friendship. In front of the monitor the surfing indivudual meets a social aquarium.
The ensemble of the Fritischi Festival right before the last performance, HSG Gensungen Felsberg before the first match of the season, the John R. Oishei Foundation during the presentation of a 9-Million-Dollar-Check... What only for a moment was put together and then was split again into manades ist frozen on these pictures, chiselled in digital stone and published.
The group picture survives as historical document: As it watches out of the internet the digital flaneur it stays as a mirror of contemporary community. What tell faces when they keep silent together?
Stefan Kaegi has chosen 100 internet group photos - on his search for masses in Google Country. He will show them at Atelierfrankfurt, comment on them, discuss them - and perhaps play a bit of music.
In German language
www.hygieneheute.de
www.rimini-protokoll.de
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Stefan Kaegi
(1972, Switzerland) studied visual arts in Zurich and performance studies at the University of Giessen, Germany. His audiopieces "Kugler der Fall", "Jodie Foster", "Play Dagobert" and "Glühkäferkomplott" were broadcasted by German and Swiss Radio Stations. In Argentina, Brazil, Graz and Poland he worked with local performers in urban contexts, producing motor cycle tours, chasing channels, pet ceremonies or bus trips. His argentinian piece "Torero Portero" toured Munich (SpielArt Festival), Frankfurt (Mousonturm) and Berlin (Willy Brandt Haus / Hebbel am Ufer)
Hygiene Heute (Bernd Ernst and Stefan Kaegi)
"Is the caughing part of the play?", Arthur Miller asked George Tabori after a performance at Burgtheater, Vienna. Bernd Ernst and Stefan Kaegi joined forces to form "Hygiene Heute" at the institute for applied theatre in Giessen in order to enrich the great history of theatre by the small gesture of misunderstanding: The authentic. Our favourite theatrical moments in the recent years were a lost fly on the white set of the Attis theatre at Mousonturm, Frankurt, Norbert Schwientek as Krapp, whose Last Tape didn't work and the caughing in the audiance during Jürgen Flimm's Uncle Vanya. Hygiene Heute believes that theatre only properly distinguishes itself from film and television when its meaningful narrative is interrupted by the unpredictible. We like the possibility of embarrassement, the minor human catastrophe rooted in the missunderstanding that is not embarrassing at all, but human behound all boundaries. In Giessen, we have been making steps in this direction since 1998: Hygiene Heute not only casted different actors for the stage, but also discovered "theatrical ready-mades" like the noble Great Dane Ula von Solling, 20 chicks and the chicken breeder Peter Heller. For "Junge Hunde 2000" (Kampnagel Hamburg) more than 60 scientists, specialists, singers and (self-)performers gathered for the "Fare Dodgers' Congress". In Giessen, Frankfurt and Munich the audiotours "Kirchner" transformed cities into stages. At the Beursschouwburg Brussels the audiance witnessed "De Hermeneutische Fitness Studio" - the first marathon race in a theatre. In june 2001 Hygiene Heute invited 69 blue-blooded "politicians" to "Europe dances. 48-hour Vienna Congress for Guinea Pigs" at Museumsquartier, Vienna. In autumn 2002 they directed 100 000 ants to form a political "State" in a Mannheim Galery. "Physik", a science (-fiction) demonstration between the higgs-particle and art was produced in Tanzquartier Vienna and toured Frankfurt, Rotterdam and Berlin in 2003.
Haug/Kaegi/Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll)
Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel joined forces in 2000 in Frankfurt. Since then they directed the documentary pieces "Kreuzworträtsel Boxenstopp" - with 80year-old-ladies confronted with Formula 1. In Lucerne the group created "Shooting Bourbaki" with 14year-old-boys confronted with fire-weapon in Lucerne. And for the Schauspielhaus Hamburg they let a crew of funeral masters, graveyard musicians, surgery students and gravestone producers perform "Deadline", a piece touring Hannover, Berlin and Vienna this winter. In Hannover they let the audiance watch the city as a theatre piece through binoculars. For the Festival "Theater der Welt" (www.theaterderwelt.de) they doubled a whole 18-hours-session of "Bundestag" live with 200 citizens of the ex-capital Bonn. From then on they called themselves "Rimini Protokoll". In Brussels they invented a whole Kunsten-Festival-des-Arts long every night a citizen to speak for five minutes on his daily theatre of i.e. selling appartments, singing for alzheimer patients, driving metro or being a priest...(www.kfda.be > midnight special agency). This winter they created "Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel" on the theatre of trials with a lawyer, a member of the jury, a court-observer and other specialists on legal affairs.
In 2004 Kaegi is working on projects for Newcastle, Brussels, Calcutta and for Burgtheater Vienna.
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