Society under Construction/
Gesellschaftsmodell Großbaustelle
(State 2)

By Stefan Kaegi

With their series State 1–4, Rimini Protokoll set out to explore fields outside of what can be organized and controlled by the nation-state today. Rimini Protokoll look back at the essence of the powers whose separation was once intended to form the essential mechanism for monitoring state structures. To what extent are these powers still able to regulate the decisive impetuses for change faced by societies?

Society under Construction / Gesellschaftsmodell Großbaustelle (State 2)

The unfinished Berlin airport, the never-ending A3 freeway project in Italy, the soccer arenas in Qatar: delayed completions and cost adjustments, the complex interdependencies of private and public stakeholders, the invisible links in the entire world…. – What do mega-construction sites tell about our society? Why do states build and for whom? By participation or master plan? In the second part of the tetralogy about post-democratic phenomena, Rimini Protokoll look at large construction sites as models for the current constitution of society.
The audience follows eight experts on construction site tours across serveral simultaneous stages. A Romanian construction worker takes the audience with him to lay tiles and talk about overtime and illicit employment. An investment consultant draws up a cost-benefit analysis for investments in “concrete gold.” A lawyer introduces the audience to how to fight supplementary claims by subcontractors. The former smoke extraction engineer for Berlin’s BER airport reconstructs the ruins of his building site. An attorney takes a look behind the scenes of the largest corruption case in North Rhine-Westphalia. An economist oversees Singapore as a master plan for post-fossil construction. And a biologist shows how ant colonies build more successfully than humans.
Rimini Protokoll translate the interlaced network of international investors, construction consortiums and contractors, public interests and outsourced suppliers into a large, navigable spatial model.

A production by Rimini Apparat and the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus as part of 100 Years of Now

TEXTS auf e-flux architecture

Concept / script / direction: Stefan Kaegi

With Sonja-Verena Breidenbach, Dieter Läpple, Alfredo Di Mauro, Jürgen Mintgens, Marius Ciprian Popescu, Andreas Riegel, Reiner Pospischil, Fang Yun Lo

Stage designer: Dominic Huber
Video: Mikko Gaestel
Music: Fabian Schulz
Light: Konstantin Sonneson
Dramaturge: Robert Koall
Third Eye, Dramaturge Staat 1-4: Imanuel Schipper
Researcher: Wilma Renfordt
Project coordinator: Jessica Páez

Directors assistant: David Schnaegelberger

Stage Design assistant: Iason Kondylis Roussos

Costume assistant: Jenny Theisen

Interns: Ada Mukhina, Ia Tanskanen-Paavola (direction), Lucie Euzet (scenography)

The series State 1-4 is a cooperation between Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Schauspielhaus Zürich and Rimini Apparat as part of 100 Years of Now, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media due to a ruling of the German Bundestag. State 1 was co-initiated by the Goethe-Institut.