14.06.2008 | HAU 1, Stresemannstrasse 29, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg

No Haus like Bau at HAU

Saturday, June 14, 2008 / 7.30 pm

HAU 1, Stresemannstrasse 29, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg, U1/U6 Hallesches Tor

Russian Constructivist theater of the 1920s portrayed “industrial man” as part of a bio-mechanical symbiosis with the factory. For the 5th berlin biennial, the Pil & Galia Kollectiv stages a new theatrical piece, a post-Fordist constructivist stage play titled No Haus Like Bau, which asks what becomes of this overidentification with the system in the wake of industrial manufacture: what would it mean in relation to the flexible ideology of late capitalism? With the boundaries between work and leisure diffused by the employment model of a post-Fordist creative industry, the critique of the mechanization of labor becomes ineffectual. Incorporating a stage set based on flatpack furniture inspired by Soviet theater design and featuring eight amateur actors, with a live score by Steven Kado, the performance explores the instrumentalization of creativity within immaterial labor and its reliance on the laborer’s virtuosity, a perpetual performance of one’s own personality. Through the performance, the externalization of the self, promoted by interior design, is appropriated to form a provisional aesthetic for a new politics. The Pil & Galia Kollectiv, originally from Israel, is based in London (GB).