NOV 3 | PERFORMANCE EVENT | DE NIEUWE REGENTES
This prize-winning participatory theater performance is a gripping work on the ethics of modern warfare at a distance, militainment, and the gamification of violence. It involves 3 performers, the audience, a Baghdad-based gamer/drone operator, and an internet-controlled sniper paintball gun.
In The Automated Sniper Julian Hetzel looks into the paradox of warfare at a distance as exemplified by drones. The ever-increasing distance between combatants reveals itself as the primary goal in the history of weapon development. It has been a long journey towards the same direction: from fistfights to knifes to swords to lances to bows to guns to bombs to planes to rockets to drones. The performance explores the oscillating relation between the virtual and the real, where seeing becomes doing, and watching becomes killing. In “The Automated Sniper” the gameification of violence is brought on stage. This performance is a battle and the stage is the battlefield.
Concept & Director: Julian Hetzel
Machine Artist: Hannes Waldschütz
Performer: Bas van Rijnsoever, Claudio Ritfeld, Ana Wild
Gamer: Akram Assam
Dramaturg: Miguel Angel Melgares
Production Manager: Jasper Hupkens
Technician: Tymen Bergman, Dirk Houthoff
Artistic Collaborator: Joachim Robbrecht
Dramaturgy Assistant: Luc Groen, Artun Alaska Arasli
Costume Design: Karianne Hoenderkamp
Light Designer: Nico de Rooij
Produced by: Frascati Theater Amsterdam in collaboration with Stichting Ism & Heit
Co-produced by: Gessnerallee Zürich (CH), Beursschouwburg Brussel (BE), Göteborg dans &
teater festival (SE), Uzès Festival (FR), WP Zimmer Antwerpen (BE), supported by Fonds
Podium Kunsten NL, ACCA Attenborough Center for Creative Arts Brighton (UK)
BIO
Julian Hetzel works as a performance maker, musician and visual artist. He develops works along the intersection of theatre, music and media that have a political dimension and a documentary approach. His works are produced and presented extensively at festivals and venues internationally. In 2017 Hetzel received the VSCD-Mimeprijs for The Automated Sniper. Since 2018 he is associated artist at Kunstencentrum CAMPO Gent (BE). Julian studied at Bauhaus University Weimar with a focus on visual communication. He graduated from DasArts in 2013. He is founding member of the electro-pop band Pentatones.
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