Documentary Escape Experience
Premiere as part of the "Sommerszene" Festival, Salzburg 2021
BORDER GRID brings the Escape Room to the borders: the audience accompanies several people on their journey, makes decisions with them and crosses borders together; in space, time and in their minds. The interactive puzzle and experience space is formed from life situations, stories and worlds of thought of a number of interviewees between London, Mexico and Israel. The performance takes place in a room whose walls consist of videowalls and which can change and transform dynamically with the story and interactions.
The title BORDER GRID, a grid of borders, contains the impetus and the artistic vision for the project: What if the borders that surround us, conventions, rules, national borders were visible? What if these borders could not be dividing lines but actual connections?
A neural network emerges before our eyes that spans the globe and transports the dream, the inspiration, the music, the humanity itself, and makes the exchange possible in the first place.
BORDER GRID weaves such a network of life situations and stories of people whom Tobias Hammerle interviewed in the USA and Mexico, in Chile, Argentina, Great Britain and on the continent, in Israel and in Austria and Germany. From personal experiences we learn about boundaries, their artistic antitheses and how they become spaces for encounters. With this, Border Grid is continuing the documentary examination of borders, in which gold extra the computer games “Frontiers” and “From Darkness”, which dealt with the effects of borders and wars from very different perspectives.
BORDER GRID - A Documentary Escape Experience from gold extra on Vimeo.
Artistic Direction, Videos: Tobias Hammerle
Concept: Karl Zechenter, Sonja Prlic und Tobias Hammerle
Design and Motion Graphics: Reinhold Bidner
Stage design and props: Valerie Eicher
Sound and programming: Sebastian Frisch
Coding Simulation: Andreas Leitner
Narration 1: Mara Vivas (VEZ)
Narration 2: Atalya Komornik (ISR)
Further narrations
Jack Gutmann, Len López (SCL), Esteban (MEX/USA), Charles Glaubitz (MEX), Miguel Mariano (MEX), Haydee Jimenez (MEX), Omar Pimiento (MEX/US)
Room construction: Konrad Seiler
Gameplay Consulting: Georg Hobmeier
Technical support: Gunther Seiser, Benedikt Gassner, Wolfgang Kahlhammer, Lukas Nemec, Markus Brandt, Sebastian Schindlauer
Stage management and props: Amelie Klimmeck
Production: Anna Grienberger
Production assistence: Julia Buchwieser
Special Thanks to: Angel & Cristina(SCL) Charles Glaubitz Daniel Espinosa Ernesto Jimenez Esteban from Brazil Esteban - Kumayay Isaac Puig, Maigre Kuiy Pao, Dominguez Arce Laura Fiorio, Maria de los Angeles, Miguel Mariano Minuit de Lacroix, Nico from Nieblas Games, Patricia Perez, Meza Pedro Vargas, Tanya Gotxikoa, Fide (Sergio), Luisa Martinez, Martha Betancourt ,Liz Zechenter, Andreas Menzel, Dylan Elmore, Shlomi Manger, Nisim Touitou, JRVisuals, Tom Goldstein, Gal Schuster
A coproduction of gold extra, Szene Salzburg und ARGEkultur
