Hier ist der Apparat

For a long time now the prophets of media have been predicting a better world. Radio made the vast empty space disappear, TV created the Global Village, and Virtual Reality gives us the world we always wanted. The promise is clear: now we can do anything, be anywhere, and participate in everything. Hier ist der Apparat asks what kind of participation is this anyway. The crew of Hier ist der Apparat makes the trip from the radio through television to video games, following a few of the detours along the way to utopia. They make this trip by the side of the world’s first first media superstar, Charles Lindbergh, as he was seen through the eyes of Germany’s first radio theorist Bertolt Brecht. In 1929 Brecht wrote the radio play “Der Ozeanflug.” Brecht’s media drama follows Lindbergh, as he and his machine battle the elements, eventually overcoming nature and arriving in Paris. Hier ist der Apparat changes the channel on this radio drama and re-imagines “Der Ozeanflug” as a contemporary radio talk show, on a TV variety show, and as the subject of a hallucinogenic first-person-shooter video game. And the question is always how much media participation we can take.

The Hier ist der Apparat crew takes “Der Ozeanflug” for a ride and it gets caught in a classic media feedback loop that Brecht himself set in motion. Pop media theorist Marshall McLuhan, (who, by the way, is also a guest on the show), once said “You can’t understand one medium until it becomes the content of another.” Hier ist der Apparat says, “You can’t understand a radio play until you see it on stage pretending to be a TV show”.

Source: BIT Teatergarasjen, vårprogram 2007. 09.09.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no/article/64