multiplex fiction

Readings of The Ninth Biospherian
brut im Konzerthaus, 12./14./16.5.2009, 20h

see also Fahim Amir’s review (German)

From 1991 to 1993 eight people lived in a monumental greenhouse in the middle of the Arizona desert. The closed ecosystem of Biosphere 2 provided the team with oxygen and food and had been planned as a test site for future space colonies. Roni Layerson’s science fiction novel The Ninth Biospherian approaches this utopian space age ruin as dispersed collection of articles and fragments. To date, this predominantly paratactic text about an imaginary ninth crew member has practically been considered unreadable – not to speak of staging it. In their reading, Juurak and Mayer unfold the book‘s list-like excesses and place its parataxis into the big empty void. A persistent rumour has it that one instantly dies in the vacuum of outer space; yet for one or two minutes a fascinating scene can be observed.

“So who is this Ninth Biospherian but a final inversion of the mechanisms in Solaris, the dystopia of that dystopia? In Solaris, every crew member is haunted by its memories come alive, sent by the enigmatic planet below the space station. In The Ninth Biospherian, there is no crew left and the space station is the haunted image of planet Earth’s own replica. The eponymous figure is an evacuated ghost, a memory left in the vacuum of time, the non-echo of the past’s future.” Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future

Von und mit Krõõt Juurak und Ralo Mayer

Soundkonzept: Andreas Berger / Glim
Infodumpers: Stephanie Cumming, Luke Baio
Programmierung: Christian Töpfner
Dramaturgische Beratung: Philipp Haupt
Technik: Thomas Gaube, Johanna Eichinger

Dank an: Berno Odo Polzer, DD Dorvillier, Anne Juren, Annie Dorsen, Christina Linortner, Philipp Hochmair, Gustav Böhm, Nico de Rooij, Institute of  Ecotechnics, Annette Südbeck/Secession Wien

Eine Koproduktion von Krõõt Juurak/Ralo Mayer und brut Wien.

Mit Unterstützung der Kulturabteilung Stadt Wien.

p. 582:
If you think that this is confusing and has got no point, then what will you think about the flood of lists of data that casts its shadow on the horizon? A shadow is a 2-dimensional projection of a higher-dimensional object. The sun is more powerful than the collected array of spotlights of all theaters in the world. A perfect vacuum is less than its own ideal concept. Our emptiness is the fullfilment of an evening at brut. A suggested translation of Erfüllung is „performance“. A computer screen is a bad metaphor that we don‘t give a shit about. The etymological root of „ruin“ is the Latin word for tumbling down. That gravity is quite something. The combination of the letters M and T is an infinite potentiality of abbreviation ciphers. A text is a list of effects of being exposed to whatever you want to call it. Und eine Parataxe ist eine in sich selbst faltende Falle.

pix by Christian Töpfner