Weltall Erde Mensch

#departure #gravity #science fiction

Janet was born on a farm, worked in a mine and a radio station, but most of all Janet lives on a planet populated exclusively by women. The men were killed by a plague a long time ago. But since then, life has been surprisingly good. The engineer Yrjöla, on the other hand, specializes in deceptively real holograms and is on an interstellar journey. He installs spruce forests on space stations to give the people living there the experience of walking through a forest.

Janet and Yrjöla are characters from science fiction novels: in 1955, Polish writer Stanisław Lem sent an atomic-powered spaceship on an expedition to Alpha Centauri with Guest in Space. The intergalactic journey in the 32nd century lasts two decades and brings unexpected encounters, but also psychological stress in the face of the infinite emptiness of the universe. In 1975, the progressive visions of the U.S. American Joanna Russ appeared, who imagined genderless and dominationless worlds in The Female Man. Despite obvious references to our present, the German edition as Planet der Frauen has so far unjustly eked out a shadowy existence.

In Weltall Erde Mensch, these novels now come together: With them in tow, director and writer Alexander Eisenach and the ensemble members embark on an expedition into the unknown - in search of alternative realities in the cosmos to celebrate the emancipatory potential of science fiction. For the poetic resources of outer space - the destination of metaphysical longing, the site of encounters with alien intelligences, the home of mysterious celestial bodies, unexplored physical phenomena, and much more - have faded into the background these days. Instead, commercial interests determine the discourse as well as the sad promise that the solution to our earthly problems can be found up there. But how can one set off into the infinite, the unexplored, the unknown, without already having the bitter ends of any progress warningly before one's eyes? Perhaps the spaceship theater can reactivate the utopian powers of extraterrestrial travel?