Rebekka Bangerter

Rebekka Bangerter - HORROR VACUI

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How do we write the world?

And what can be found in the void?

A live written performance, that invites you to read between the lines and embrace the void. A slowed-down reflection on the power of language and the politicality of writing.

An exploration of the entanglement of human-text-technology, inspired by (techno-)feminist perspectives. What realities do we experience between deleted and edited thoughts, co-imagined creations and our own bodily presence?

In her time at DAS, Rebekka has been trying to understand the performativity of the written word. How does text perform? And how to perform through text? While she is still thinking, typing and doubting, text-generating language models have evolved tremendously and found their way into our everyday use. Producing text has become fast and posthuman, disembodied. But who is reading all of it? And what happens to our imaginary in a semio-capital space of infinite growth?

Please take a /seat/ break.

HORROR VACUI. Latin for “the fear of emptiness”.

by Henriette Festerling

In physics, according to Aristotle,Horror Vacui means that “nature abhors the vacuum”. He suggested that any free space will immediately be filled up by surrounding matter, thus preventing a void to come into existence.

In art history, Horror Vacui has driven styles that endorse the excessive use of ornaments, for example, on religious buildings, densely decorated carpets or mosaics.

In cartography, Horror Vacui resulted not only in in the frantic measuring and surveying of what was considered empty land while turning a blind eye to what was already there, but also in the mythologization of the not yet appropriated: instead of leaving a blank spot on the map, they were filled with monsters, living in the depths of the sea.

Fostering a fear of the monster was thus a lesser evil than coping with the gaping Horror of the Vacui.

Rebekka’s Vacui is the white page. In this piece she faces the performativity, creative potential, materiality, consequences and at times, the horror of the written word. Just mere black shapes on a white background; where can it take us? The white page suggests serenity, innocence, freedom. It is almost magical in the potential of the endless ways to interact with it. What will be the first word? And the next? Will the black pour over the white void? Will the page have to be filled, ornamented, to the last free spot, like a mosaic?

Text is our tool to make sense of the world and to share these notions. It teaches, communicates, manifests and archives. No doubt that it can prompt our imagination like little other media are able to. Today the written word is much dispersed and as accessible as ever before in human history. It is easily edited, decontextualized and reframed. Thereby, text as a means of communication runs the risk of misfiring or misinforming, and becoming a continuous reiteration rather than a creative exchange of knowledge and ideas. The innocence of the white page is deceitful. Turn it over and it will pose questions of authorship - who writes? - readership - who reads? - and agenda-setting power - what will be distributed? - stripping the written word of its sublimity and placing it back in our midst.

And if this metaphorical page turn fails for the obvious reason that the page itself is metaphorical in a Word document on screen, the material implications of writing due to the manufacturing of the instruments it necessitates, become even more visible.

The connection between the creative potential of the white page, creation and text production as symbol of our collective Horror Vacui and coping with or even embracing negative spaces that the void may generate as a form of recreation, is central to this performance. The piece generates spaces for the spectators to inquire their own mode of textual creativity, creation and recreation. How does the written word reflect, provoke, expand or diminish our embodied experiences? In what ways can text appeal to us as a sensual being? How do we do things with words? Do they translate into actions? What are limitations?

Mapping monsters and blank spots, horror and vacui in our relations to written text is what Rebekka Bangerter’s HORROR VACUI sets out to do.

Rebekka Bangerter is a Swiss theatre director / maker, enjoying working between different bubbles, such as state theatre and independent scene. Next to her studies at DAS she holds a bachelor's degree in theatre directing, history and German philology.

In her work she explores how medialisation and language shape our perception of reality. She attempts to create a counterpoint to a society of spectacle and a permanent too-much, often working from an aesthetic of absence, in which the audience's own co-presence becomes crucial. Inspired by the concept of Realismo Magico as well as by post-internet theories, she aims to interweave poetic, scientific, algorithmic, historical, and personal perspectives of narrating the world, in order to create a multi-layered and hybrid vision of reality, that is in constant state of negotiation, trying to undermine and question a techno-capitalist monopolisation of the world.

Credits

Concept / Text / Performance: Rebekka Bangerter; Dramaturgy: Henriette Festerling; Scenography and Light Design: Hendrik Walther; Individual Tutor: Joachim Robbrecht; Advisor / Oeil Exterieur: Emke Idema; Costume Advice: Daphne De Winkel; Advise Isadora: Chun Shing Au / Jimmy Grima; Technical Support: Durante Van Kuijk; Special thanks to Edit Kaldor