Lost on purpose

Lost on purpose by Teater NOR was a meeting between a philosophic discussion and an audio-visual room.

The poetic texts are written by the Scottish author John Burnside. He reads his own texts. The music is composed by Fred Jonny Berg. Philosopher Anniken Greve has helped develop the conceptual issues and has written the Wittgenstein-inspired text "An inner life in an outer world"

Teater NOR made a ”sub arctic room” consisting of large glass plates on wheels and crystal prisms. The room functioned as a metaphor for the Northern Norwegian or the Northern. The crystal prisms were illuminated by laser cannons, and filmed with live cameras as light hit the prisms. This was projected on the glass plates and used as a light effect during the performance. The vision in Lost on purpose was to develop an inhuman space, hoping that the human dimension will appear just here.

In this room Teater NOR discussed the terms of identity and the experience of being home or what belongs to home. The first part of the production was organised as a lecture by philosopher Øystein Sanne. The lecture was mimed to question and comment on the performance’s mix of fiction and documentary material.

The performance is a synthesis of a physics experiment, a philosophical discussion and an aesthetic attack on the grammatical first-person singular. Which questions can be posed about a human life? Is the metaphysical "I" a fruitful point of departure for understanding and cognition? What is the relationship between the outer world and the inner self? What does it take to challenge our self-understanding?

In a central scene the performers choreograph the grinding of pig hearts and pig kidneys with old kitchen grinders. The grinded hearts run down on mirror plates placed on electric cars. These cars, with mirrors and grinded hearts, dance a remote-controlled dance onstage.

Lost on purpose visited Sarajevo during the festival Sarajevo Winter.

Lost on purpose by Teater NOR is performed in English.

Lost on purpose by Teater NOR is supported by Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Performing Artists, the county of Nordland, the municipality of Vestvågøy and the Arts Council of Northern Norway.

Source:

E-mail from Thorbjørn Gabrielsen, 10.11.2010