HOPE

HOPE

A Night Piece by nebel nebel in collaboration with F. Wiesel 

“The first person to enclose a piece of land with a fence and to think of saying, ‘This belongs to me’—and who found people simple-minded enough to believe him—was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how much misery and horror would have been spared the human race if someone had torn down the fence posts and called out to his fellow human beings: ‘Beware of believing the deceiver; you are lost if you forget that, while the fruits belong to all, the earth belongs to no one.” 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Discourse on Inequality”

City dwellers seek refuge in allotment gardens, while others annex entire countries; and some 60 years after the first moon landing, space has once again become a canvas for fantasies of power. What once carried sailing ships across oceans now flies through the endless expanse in rockets: the age-old idea that everything can be conquered, surveyed, and exploited. But how does one escape a territorial mindset of ownership that reaches all the way to the stars? 

HOPE tells a fantastical story about claims of ownership, human hubris, and the power of non-human actors. Taking the moon as its starting point, the play uses a whimsical experimental setup to question the relationship between humans and the environment. The audience witnesses an absurd intergalactic legal dispute that demonstrates: Not everything can be fenced in—certainly not that which has never belonged to anyone but itself. The man in the moon becomes reality and is confronted with the consequences of his romantic fantasy. Where does the promise of freedom inherent in the logic of ownership lead us?

Artistic Direction: nebel nebel (Lisa Chiara Kohler, Hannah von Eiff, Balthasar Wörner) in cooperation with F. Wiesel (Hanke Wilsmann, Jost von Harleßem) |Text: nebel nebel, F. Wiesel, Tassilo Pyko, Hardy Jürgens, and others |FeaturingHardy Jürgens, Emma Stratmann, Martyn Owen |Set and Costumes: Lisa Chiara Kohler, Hannah von Eiff |Technical Design, Video: Jost von Harleßem |Composition, Sound Design by BalthasarWörner |Outside Eyeby Hanke Wilsmann |Roboticsby Alexander Buers |Intern: Matilda Lang |Production byHeidrun Schlegel, nebel nebel |Visual Communication, Photos by AlexanderBrueggeboes