Vivarium – Reisen, Kochen, ZOO ... (Manos Tsangaris)
is a piece of multimedia music theatre that playfully and symbolically evokes the fundamental states of human evolution: man as a nomad, as sedentary, and as a hyper-civilised being in whom all things natural seem placid and tame. What do we expect from staying in our fenced-in wilderness? The liberation of mankind into a human state?
But let us go back to the beginning. First came nomadic societies of hunters and gatherers, then herdsmen who moved from one pasture to the next. Finally came sedentary communities that thrived mainly on agriculture, leading to our present-day penned-in, seemingly zoo-like forms of existence. This correlates one-to-one with the major new broadcasting lines currently on German television (what is the situation like in Poland?): Travel, adventure and emigration, cooking and furnishings,
zoo from the inside: how does the lion get its shots today? The creation in the upended rectangle that we view from the couch is our wilderness. We are the lion.
Adventure?Yes: inside the four right angles that constitute a window. Physical contact? Yes: everyone fumbles with their smartphones in fear of losing contact. Some press it to their ear, the head gently inclined. Others peck on its surface in wrapt attention.
Mobility?Yes: anywhere we want to go, always carrying our physical contact devices. Fetishes.
Happiness? Yes: “happy hour ” following upon “all you can eat”. Keep your prozac ready!
Music?Yes: acoustic irradiation inside the cranium!
We should view this in a positive light!
People have become wholly “interiorized”. Everything is inside the brain. The sound track is part of life. It outlines our moods. Was this what Walter Benjamin meant when he said, “To be happy is to be able to become selfaware without fright”? Motion has slipped inside the cranium. We sit at home, glued to the monitor, and life pays us a visit for beer and crisps.
Is it all a question of how we look at it?
Manos Tsangaris, Freiburg i. Br., 30 April 2012
