An audio walk through fictional realities and real fictions
// Campus of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Using the tools of theater, IN ZUKUNFT:MAINZ – THE PERFORMATIVE CONGRESS takes a leap into the unknown, brings dystopian depths to light, and explores utopian alternative worlds. The campus of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz became a laboratory for the future. As part of the project, research facilities, lecture halls, greenhouses, and archives invited participants to put suggested or obvious predictions about the future to the test and to playfully explore them during a performative audio walk.
As part of a large-scale collaborative project between Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz University of Applied Sciences (Design), and the Mainz State Theater, students of theater studies and interior architecture/ spatial communication, in collaboration with artistic and academic mentors from all three partner institutions, created the seven stops along the tour. The spaces were temporarily stripped of their everyday functions and imbued with new associations and layers of meaning. This transformation was achieved through both performance and scenography. This involved an intensive engagement with the site itself, whose historically evolved structures and modes of use remained ever-present and shone through the utopian overwritings.
In addition to the audio tour, a total of four “Future Talks” took place on Saturday and Sunday, addressing the future of value, resources, technology, and coexistence. Political scientist, dramaturg, and author Jan Deck, along with historian and economist Friederike Habermann, engaged in conversation with Mainz-based actors who are already shaping the future on the ground today.
