Happiness

Happiness

concept Dries Verhoeven

##general.period##:
19/01 - 28/01/23
##general.room##:
Montjuïc

Show completed

Timetable

from 15:00 to 23:00
performance on loop

Running time

25'

Place

Plaça Margarida Xirgu

Language

In English no subtitled

Price

Free

Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven explores the world of artificial happiness that is increasingly available in the form of drugs, painkillers and antidepressants.

In his work Happiness theatre maker and visual artist Dries Verhoeven presents an installation-performance in continuous session. A small concrete building is situated in the public space. It looks like a cross between a public toilet and a pharmacy. This illicit store is manned by a humanoid, a human-looking robot. She talks to us about different drugs, painkillers and antidepressants we can use to tweak our emotional reality by re-jigging the serotonin and dopamine levels in our brain. In the combination of robotics and drugs, the work explores the zone where the human and the artificial merge; where, aided by synthetic substances we can rehumanise or become more than human. Or escape our human state entirely, for a while.

Show premiered on 01/08/19 at the Boulevard Festival Den Bosch (Netherlands).

Other shows of Katharsis 2023

DIGITAL PUPPETEERING

Stefano Trambusti

VOICE

Annie Saunders

DRAMATURGY

Hella Godee

CREATION HUMANOID

Chris Creatures Filmeffects

SOFTWARE

Sylvain Vriens

COSTUMES

Saskia Schoenmaker

SOUND

Jimi Zoet

DIRECTOR ASSISTANT

Bart van de Woestijne

HEAD OF TECHNIQUE

Roel Evenhuis

TECHNICAL MANAGER

Peer Thielen / Titus Duitshof

PRODUCTION

Studio Dries Verhoeven

CO-COMMISSIONED BY

SPRING Festival Utrecht (NL) and Stichting NDSMwerf (NL)

MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE SUPPORT OF

Fonds Podiumkunsten, Gemeente Utrecht, BPD Cultuurfonds, Fonds Fentener van Vlissingen, stimuleringsfonds creatieve industrie, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and BNG Cultuurfonds

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