On and On and On and On
Anyone interested in participatory game theatre in the German-speaking world cannot ignore machina eX. For 15 years, the Berlin collective has been creating playable theatre pieces that are also walk-in computer games. The 15th anniversary of machina eX is now being celebrated with a retrospective at HAU, which has been the group's closest cooperation partner from the very beginning.
As part of “On and On and On and On,” three theatre games can be (re)played from 25 to 28 June: While in “Life Goes On” the audience travels together to the 1990s in a multimedia board game to reconstruct a story about the Treuhandanstalt, in “Intranet” the players fight as members of a fictitious local newspaper editorial team against a cyber attack on their region. In addition to the performances at HAU3, both productions are also available as free online versions at HAU4.de. As part of Houseclub a new production of a machina-eX classic can be experienced: in “15.000 Games”, pupils from the Fritz Karsen School in Neukölln will explore the sci-fi dystopia “15.000 Gray” (2011) and examine the topicality of the very first machina production ever shown at HAU. There will also be an anniversary exhibition, two workshops and discussion formats in which experts and guests will discuss the past, present and future of game theatre. This will create a platform at HAU3 for four days, bringing together old and new machina-eX players, specialist audiences and school classes, gamers and theatre-goers.
The Houseclub will also feature a new production of a machina-eX classic: in “15'000 Games”, pupils from the Fritz-Karsen-Schule will explore the sci-fi dystopia 15'000 Gray (2011) and examine the topicality of the very first machina production ever shown at the HAU.
And now a brief history of the collective: the genre-defining phenomenon began at the University of Hildesheim, where in 2010 a group of students developed a play practice that combines classic theatre techniques with narrative strategies from computer games. Since then, machina eX has produced over thirty games in German-speaking countries and internationally – mainly in the theatre, but also for museums and classrooms, in urban spaces and in a medieval fortress.
Funded within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.