BOUNDARIES – An archive of future findings

We’re in the year 2130. The earth has been uninhabitable for human life for several decades. Only a part of humankind had the financial means to emigrate to Mars. From there, they look back and try to find out what happened back then on that ‘blue marble’ that still rotates about its axis at 465 meters per second.

In the performance "Boundaries. An Archive of Future Findings", a group of researchers looks back on a time of boundaries. A time when people were more connected than ever before in the history, yet were mainly busy building walls. It was the moment when humanity had begun to inscribe itself irreversibly into all the cycles of the planet and at the same time to divide it into areas, that are clearly separated from one another. It was the last crisis of the "Homo Terminus", a genus of the human being, which mainly defined itself by its borders.

Scientists are studying remnants from the time before the planet changed forever: objects, images and sounds, traces of that brief moment when everything seemed possible. Using these findings, they try to make out what the Earth was. Little by little, an archive of past futures is being created. Traces of that brief moment when everything still seemed possible.

A performance by andpartnersincrime.

Ticket reservation: tickets@andpartnersincrime.org

With the support of:

From and with:

A performance by andpartnersincrime.

Artistic direction Eleonora Herder

Dramaturgy Tim Schuster

Video design Julia Novacek

Design + space Anya Sukhova

Sound design Marc Behrens

Live sounds + sound direction Jan Bam

performance Jan Bam, Eleonora Herder, Julia Novacek, Tim Schuster, Saeed Sedaghat, Anya Sukhova.

Speaker's voices Eleonora Herder and Saeed Sedaghat

The video documentation consists of four parts, which are based on the four chapters of the performance. Each chapter can be viewed detached from its chronological context.

Premiere: 28.06.2018 in World Cultures Museum, in Frankfurt am Main.

Further showings: 29.06., 30.06.2018 and 01.07.2018

Ticket reservation: tickets@andpartnersincrime.org

The message, of course, is obvious to the point of triviality. But it's all extremely well done and carefully crafted, with ingenuity and wit in every detail. And that's what makes it so appealing: it's a pleasure to watch. 

Stefan Michalzik: “Searching for clues in the rubble of the earth”, Offenbacher Post, June 30, 2018

It's not without subtle irony that Eleonora Herder and the performers of andpartnersincrime chose the Weltkulturen Museum for "Boundaries," a piece that could be called an installation, thought experiment, theater, or video performance.

Christian Schütte: “Future finds", FAZ, 30.06.2018

Boundaries is a production that explores its subject in many different ways. It quotes Rousseau and reflects on the passport as a kind of cell. One could call "Boundaries" instructive without feeling intrusively admonished.

Sylvia Staude: “What is the goose doing over New York?”, Frankfurter Rundschau, features section, July 2nd, 2018

Many thoughts, images, and ideas on the topics of fences, walls, and cells, and the stories that go with them. (…) They truly managed to cast a strange and astonished glance at our present. And finally: walls always contain the possibility of being overcome, even if only in the imagination. 

Mario Scalla: “The year is 2130” Hessischer Rundfunk - Early Review, June 29, 2018

Here you can find the complete Press review here.