E-Book, Englisch, 232 Seiten
Oberender CHANGES (English edition)
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-95749-418-4
Verlag: Theater der Zeit
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Berliner Festspiele 2012?–?2021. Formats, Digital Culture, Identity Politics, Immersion, Sustainability
E-Book, Englisch, 232 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-95749-418-4
Verlag: Theater der Zeit
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Thomas Oberender has been Director of the Berliner Festspiele since 2012 and Artistic Director of the Immersion programme that he created since 2016.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 7
New Formats—Formats of the New
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 17
Formats 2012–2021 / Seite 28
The Sonic Extremes of the MaerzMusik Festival
von Alex Ross / Seite 43
36 Points on Creating Our Work Through Excess
von Signa Köstler / Seite 46
William Kentridge in Conversation with Christiane Peitz
von William Kentridge und Christiane Peitz / Seite 49
Emanuele Coccia and Philippe Parreno in Conversation with Thomas Oberender
von Thomas Oberender, Emanuele Coccia und Philippe Parreno / Seite 54
When You Mix Something, It's Good to Know Your Ingredients
von Dorothea von Hantelmann / Seite 60
Architecture That Blurs Boundaries
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 64
Digital Culture
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 81
Invisible Forces: Machinery, People, Utopia
von Frank Schirrmacher / Seite 85
Exorcism
von Susanne Kennedy / Seite 91
The System of Everything
von Stephan Schwingeler / Seite 96
The Art of Realtime
von David OReilly / Seite 99
Voices of Dissent.
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 105
Decolonizing Time
von Donna Haraway / Seite 113
Home is Not Always the Answer
von Naika Foroutan / Seite 115
Gabriele Stötzer in Conversation with Thomas Oberender
von Thomas Oberender und Gabriele Stötzer / Seite 118
The Mess of Self-Revolting
von Sivan Ben Yishai / Seite 128
Sonic Compasses in Dire Times!
von Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung / Seite 131
To Not Be a Single Being: Otobong Nkanga and Theaster Gates
von Robert Maharajh / Seite 138
Making Kin
von Stephanie Rosenthal / Seite 143
Arrival in No-Man's-Land
von Jens Bisky / Seite 146
"Every Message Was Meant for Me"
von Lucien Strauch / Seite 151
Thomas Oberender in Conversation with Nancy Pettinicchio
von Thomas Oberender und Nancy Pettinicchio / Seite 157
Mind in the Cave
von Markus Selg / Seite 166
Ed Atkins and Rebecca Saunders in Conversation with Bastian Zimmermann
von Bastian Zimmermann, Rebecca Saunders und Ed Atkins / Seite 170
Brian Eno in Conversation with Thomas Oberender
von Thomas Oberender und Brian Eno / Seite 176
Measures for Our "Fellow World"
von Diana Palm / Seite 185
Pioneers of Change
von Thomas Oberender / Seite 190
A Conversation with Tino Sehgal
von Tino Sehgal, Christiane Fricke, Susanne Schreiber, Petra Schwarz und Bernd Ziesemer/ Seite 200
Frédérique Aït-Touati and Bruno Latour in Conversation with Thomas Oberender Staging Gaia.
Theatre, Climate and a Shift in Awareness
von Thomas Oberender, Bruno Latour und Frédérique Aït-Touati / Seite 205
Berliner Festspiele Publications / 2012–2021
NEW FORMATS—FORMATS OF THE NEW
Thomas Oberender
.
The word “format” triggers multiples associations. On the one hand, it brings to mind standardised sizes or conditions. Formatting makes data and data carriers usable in the field of digital technologies. In this context formatting means overwriting. Colloquially, we recognise different book formats—which usually have to do with sizes, and book types such as paperback or hardcover. In the media industry, formats are certain types of products—a talk show as distinct from a news programme, for instance. What all these uses of the word have in common is that formats create a type of container, a standardised, predefined frame which can accommodate a multiplicity of works. Generally, it is the work that is seen rather than the format. But it is the format that largely determines how the work is “read”—is it a performance or perhaps an installation? Formats are principles of order which themselves assume form. They generate a display which makes a basic statement: they implicitly convey that a programme is a news bulletin or a casting show, for instance, solely through the form in which the content is produced. By contrast, the content itself—all the various contributions, film clips, segments, texts—is not fixed by the format; instead, the format must remain as flexible as possible to accommodate content variation without revealing its own premises. Because while the content assembled within formats can change at any time, the format per se remains unchanged.
Work—format—programme
When exhibitions, performances, festivals, themed series and other types of events are mentioned in the following, they come very close to what is described here as the “format”. Formats are means. They are used to structure overarching programmes composed of a variety of formats, which in turn present a variety of works. A standard television programme consists of a sequence of various formats, which might include, for example, a magazine programme, a specific film format, a news bulletin or a sports programme. Each of these formats offers a wide variety of works over the course of time, which replace one another over the course of an evening or over a period of weeks and months. All the different formats together make up the programme, in much the same way as theatres and concert halls have performances, matinees, audience discussions, guided tours and festivals. Formats thus create “territories” which are played upon; who plays upon them, and how, is conceived in terms of the works and often determined by the interests of the institutions.
Anyone who can “read” formats, including the classic, invisible formats, will often recognise complex political and aesthetic relationships, not by discussing the works and programmes, but rather these conceptions of an “in between”, the cement between the works which connects them and lends them cohesion. But the relationship between work and format becomes complicated and interesting above all because well-founded formats can themselves assume the character of works. Conversely, many artists now take a more curatorial approach and understand each respective work as a format, as a playing field which they delineate and in which they enable various actors to be heard with their own history and form within that framework.
Formats are forms of relationships. Their essence is the design of the relationship between the work and the audience. They reduce the inexhaustibility of social issues and artistic forms not by defining the what of things, but the of things. This rule is the DNA of the format. Programmes, in turn, are the containers for these formats. For programmers, formats are a means of producing a mix of perspectives and work forms which define the intention or the signature of a programme as vividly and diversely as possible. Programme managers establish rules for formats in the same way that formats define rules for multiple works. Every author knows this game in their encounters with the commissioning staff of broadcasters and newspapers, or theatres, where the programme custodians are called “dramaturges” and act as guardians of the formats. Therefore, they often trim works to suit the rules of formats, whereas programme managers alter the formats of commissioning staff. These framing hierarchies create “content” simply by defining the format. The implications for selecting and the way of viewing themes are seldom explicitly defined, rather they arise “automatically” through the structural guidelines of the formats.
The exhibition and festival project “Down to Earth” is an example of this. The ground rules of this format were: no air travel, disclosure of all consumption and origins of the resources used, and no electricity in the exhibition—which had significant consequences for the invited works, as many of them had been in existence, and touring, for some time. Instead of electric light, daylight and coloured curtains were used in the windows on the south side of the Gropius Bau. Instead of using microphones and loudspeakers, the vocal parts of the piece by François Chaignaud and Marie-Pierre Brébant were played live and the audience positioned accordingly. Music from a laptop was replaced by the performances of musicians ( by Claire Vivianne Sobottke), and electronic effects were created with analogue instruments ( by Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods). The format of “no electricity” raised numerous questions and policy issues, particularly the attempt to turn off the air conditioning and the associated contracts with insurers and lenders. But despite all this, these ground rules turned out to be inspiring and constructive, and gave some of the invited artists impetus for more “analogue” work.
In our institutions we may refer to a “game from below” when an author appears with new proposals and rule violations at the level of works. The “game from above”, on the other hand, is a game of containment and framing. But the interesting game is perhaps the one that doesn’t recognise “above” and “below”, only acquisition of knowledge, urgency and soft criteria such as beauty, quality, truthfulness and problem relevance. This also raises the question of institutional power and hierarchies. Working with format is without doubt an encounter with the power of institutions—and it differs from the encounter with the audience, which is also a power factor in itself.
What is the invention of a weather app compared to the invention of the format of the “app”, the mobile application software? Most written works have a long lifespan because, like plays, choreographies or compositions and apps as well, they are created in such a way that their script ultimately translates into behaviour—every work wants us to do something. Through their “application” in city theatres or concert halls, these notations allow us to keep returning to our own actuality. All of these works that were created for the stage over time remained valid because they work in formats that are compatible with the appropriate hardware, and so the works are often straightforward to perform.
Canon of formats
A performance is, in a sense, the “application” of the work in the format. Over the course of time, works are repeatedly reinterpreted and re-evaluated, just as the formats have to prove themselves in the perception of the audience and the programme directors. The inventory of central works, its “canon”, which is different for each epoch, is just as changeable as the canon of...
