Multimedia environment with performative inserts
Reception room and rehearsal stage at the Volkstheater, Vienna (AT)

Dimensions variable
Vestibule and staircase: speakers; space 1: four projectors; rehearsal stage: five projectors, speakers, string curtain, lighting; two actors; publication A6 format

In cooperation with Cathrin Pichler

COMBATscience takes the life stories of the German scientist and Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Haber (1868–1934) and his wife, the chemist Clara Immerwahr (1870–1915), as motifs for the development of various topics. How did modern war begin? How did instruments of annihilation come into existence then, and how do they come into existence nowadays? What has been the role of science in that regard? In this performative collage, war events of the past and the present - as well as their scientific foundations - are traversed.

Friedrich Haber and Clara Immerwahr were both involved in the tide of events of the First World War, but with different mindsets – Haber used his knowledge as chief designer of weaponized gases for German warfare, while pacifist Clara Immerwahr committed suicide after the first poison gas attack by German troops in 1915. The theatrical ambience is transformed into a multimedia staged environment composed of several installations. The viewers penetrate the space, moving between the temporal episodes and spatial stations of the action spectrum.

Images

Exhibitions:
2008, COMBATscience, Volkstheater, Wien (AT)