game over

performance
art
instalation


Game Over is a project about empathy and the gamification of violence. In Game Over the audience is invited to step in and to take the control in their hands. How far are you willing to go?

The participatory installation Game Over explores the ambivalences of global drone warfare. The distinction between perpetrators and accomplices, spectators and eyewitnesses, cowards and heroes becomes as blurred as the line between fiction and reality.

Game Over brings a complex and highly topical theme to the stage, to create awareness and a space for dialogue and reflection on the big questions of war and peace.

At the core of Game Over is the reconstruction of the military experience of gamified killing. As witnesses both on screen and in real life, the audience uncovers analogies between drone warfare and Ego-shooter games. This project encourages the audience to recognize their own responsibility for their actions and decisions and offers insights into the psychology of the perpetrators.

“If perpetrators are normal people like you and me, that also means that you and I can also become perpetrators.”
– Harald Welzer, social psychologist

Game Over combines art and war, computer games and theater, to create empathy through an artistic-social experiment in which you decide how far you can go.

Credits:

Concept & Director: Julian Hetzel
Performer: Niek Vanoosterweyck, Marius Bistritzky,
Judith Florance Ehrhardt, Laure Fleitz
Dramaturgy: Miguel Angel Melgares

Machine Artist: Hannes Waldschütz
Technical coordinator: Aengus Havinga & Vincent Buene
Production:  Franziska Niehaus
Production Co-Ordinator: Lena Düspohl
Production Studio Julian Hetzel: Jitske Weijand

https://www.staatstheater-kassel.de/play/gameover-2996













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about
aengus havinga began developing his artistic language early in life. Growing up in various parts of Europe he was surrounded by a various amount of parallel cultures. And thanks to his parents obsession with electronic music and dance, Aengus is able to experience music within various forms.
but wait
he learned to play some piano as a teenager visiting some classic, emo pop and indie rock, but quickly gravitated to teaching himself music production with a midi keyboard and laptop. In his lowkey home studio Aengus channels his wide range of interest and incorporates it in his personal sound in developing an own signature.