Sound installation

A messenger's report is a dramaturgical means of the ancient Greek theater. It is a report about events, which take place not directly on stage, but in some spatial or temporal distance. On one hand, the messenger's report is adopted from the older genre "epic", since events are presented in a narrative way. On the other hand, it can be seen as the historic origin of the central component of a theater play, the dialogue, since the messenger is the first dialogue partner in the early phase of ancient theater.

The installation Messenger's Report uses fragments of reports of messengers from theater plays by Aischylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and rearranges them in ever new combinations, partly with the aid of artificial intelligence. The concrete content of the original reports gets lost through the fragmentation. However, the speaker's attitude and declamation and thus the emotion and the highly charged atmosphere of the original report stay preserved. The visitors get the impression of a diversity of voices, within which ever new narratives arise, like imaginary reports from distant times.

Speaker: Robert Besta
Recording: Sebastian Schottke
Design of loudspeaker grid: Johannes Jensen
Consulting: Yannick Hofmann, Jakob Schreiber