[Work in Progress] The project aims to make the topic of climate change tangible as a hybrid theater via a participatory online platform and AR and telematic digtial tools. It is being developed under the direction of Michael Simon with Chris Ziegler (Techn. Direction, Interface, Stage Software), Nikolaus Völzow (App Development), MA theater students from the ZHDK, Immersive Arts Space ZHDK, and stage design students from CALARTS, California Institute of the Arts.
The city of Mojave is located in the desert of the same name, two hours north of Los Angeles. In summer the temperatures rise to over 120 degrees and in winter it snows. The desert is a training ground for bombing. It is a test area for rockets and serves as a scrapyard for commercial aircraft. It is cut through by highways, racetracks, railroad tracks and covered with solar parks and wind farms. The main water supply of Los Angeles runs in a pipeline under the desert floor, in whichmine shafts remind of the time of the gold diggers. This landscape is a symbol for the age of the Anthropocene. But the desert is not dead. Deep-rooted plants survive years of drought. Coyotes, snakes and bears are still found here. A place full of contradictions, a dystopian metaphor like a set of the future. The emerging dilemmas between nature and human interventions in these are the reason and the basis for locating the project in Mojave, California one and a half hour drive from CALARTS.