The An-Archic Device

The An-Archic Device is something between toy theatre, street altar and peepshow: a small-scale stage model, a blinking automat, an audio-visual machine, that produces physical and anarchic dissociation by means of laughter.
Based on Antonin Artaud’s theater manifesto The Conquest of Mexico, The An­-Archic Device deals with Mexico as a space of otherness and as a subjective heterotopia. Following Artaud, Mexico becomes the playground for an examination of danger and fear. The An-­Archic Device introduces itself to the spectator as a kind of Punch and Judy show. During the standby­modus of the installation its display remains dark, while the audience is listening to an audiotrack based on the first part of Artaud’s manifesto from 1933. After somebody has put ten pesos into the coinslot the second part of the text is staged in a multimedia light and picture show. The final result is a multilayered and hybrid theatre model that re­enacts Artaud’s theatrical examination of “Mexico” on a small scale.