ALTER EGO Bootleg

a multimedia puppet show in three rooms

By Helgard Haug / Stefan Kaegi

Can puppets be seen as the predecessors of artificial intelligence? Where is the boundary between the visible threads of that original avatar, the puppet, and the algorithms of an automated, or even self-learning system?


The first year-long exhibition in the Puppentheatersammlung’s new home in Kraftwerk Mitte is an immersive multimedia installation. The multi-room experience was conceived, designed and realised by the internationally renowned label Rimini Protokoll. Travelling through the spaces of the exhibition, the audience falls under the spell of an automated presentation in which puppet theatre becomes a metaphor for a digital world full of invisible threads.

The legend of the autonomous puppet, a puppet that rebels against its creator and player can be found throughout the history of puppet theatre. Time and again, our perception, fired on by our empathy and our mirror neurones, has emancipated the puppets and made them independent. That legend is seamlessly adaptable to the virtual stage of digital image production, where it has taken on a new political explosiveness.

Concept / Text / Director: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi 
Scenography: Evi Bauer 
Dramaturgy: Imanuel Schipper
Sound design: Daniel Wetzel 
Video design: Juan Pablo Gaviria Bedoya  
Lighting design and programming: Robert Läßig 
Programming deepfake and tablet apps: Victor Victor, Tania Krisanty
Design / Construction of robot arm: Ingo Mewes
Programming robotic: Julian Jungel 
Marionette construction: Christian Werdin 
Rehearsing movement sequences marionette: Students of the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, Department of Contemporary Puppetry (Annika Schaper, Almut Schäfer-Kubelka, Tanja Linnekogel, Robert Richter, Sven Tillmann)
Synchronized voice marionette: Benno Lehmann
Voice: Bettina Sörgel
Playing the puppet - Video shooting Dresden: Caspar Bankert and Christoph Levermann
Camera: Raphael Freitas
Technical direction: Robert Läßig
Planning and supervision of the structural realisation: Christine Weisser, Thomas Bache, kursiv I text - Objekt - raum GmbH
Exhibition construction: Tischlerei Deger GmbH, interior decorator Haubner, carpentry Rosenmüller, Matthias Kutz, Steffen Esser
Costume tailoring: Katharina Schimmel
Production management: Juliane Männel,  Monica Ferrari, Vera Nau 
Collaboration scenography: Josefine Ketelsen
Collaboration Light: Kristin Feldmann
Collaboration Sound: Karolin Killig, Sebastian Rietz
Collaboration Space: Anne Klein
Collaboration programming: Hans Leser
 
Support Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Marc Bausback, Nina Bewerunge, Ronald Fetter, Michael John, Benjamin Kahlert, Olena Kühn, Maria Krusche, Ralph Kunze, Kathi Loch, Kai-Uwe Metzler, Katja Ruttkowski-Großer, Anne S. Schmid, Patrick Stark
 
A production of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and Rimini Apparat.

In co-operation with the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch (Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts), Abteilung Zeitgenössische Puppenspielkunst (Department of Contemporary Puppetry).

Supported by: Friends of the Dresden State Art Collection e.V.

With many thanks to: Dr Matthew McGinity, Immersive Experience Lab, Technische Universität Dresden, Bernd Lintermann, ZKM Karlsruhe, Lisa Homburger, Johannes Benecke,  HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, tjg. theater junge generation Dresden, Staatsoperette Dresden, Prof. Markus Joss, Raskolnikoff Pension (Petra Burckhardt), Skulpturensammlung bis 1800 und Museum für Sächsische Volkskunst der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden