BUDAPEST@PLAY
An interactive Theatre Game with Mixed Realities
The URBI Institute for Urban Design, led by its chairman Dr. Klamm is inviting citizens to survey their city. The objective is to collect data needed to establish a smart-city and to have citizens participate in the development process of their city. Equipped with a tablet the audience is sent out to the center of Budapest – accompanied by the artificial intelligence CUCI, who leads the way and the cultural guide Barnabas. But not everything is the way it seems and the data collection turns into a Kafkaesque quest for answers.
Looking through the lense of the tablet enables players to access another level of perception: virtual elements, projected into real urban space, meld into an augmented reality in which you move and act. Along the way you decide yourself what your contribution to the smart city will be. A story about our digital lives and the questions: What does the city of the future look like? Who lives in it and who owns it? And what is your role?
Dirk Neldner has worked as a cultural manager for various theatres and cultural organizations. He has initiated and directed numerous major international theatre projects with the support of various EU funds: "European Schoolyard Stories" (1999-2000), "Kinderspiel - Sydney" (2001), "Magic Net" (2001-2008), "Platform Shift" (2009-2018), "Documents of Poverty and Hope" (2014-2016). Dirk designed the national "Kleist Year" (dedicated to the famous German poet Heinrich von Kleist) for the city of Frankfurt (Oder) in 2008-10. From 2010 to 2015 he was Managing Director of the Distel, the political satire theatre on Berlin's Friedrichstrasse. For the opening of the Berlin Humboldt Forum, he developed the exhibition "Das Deutsche in mir ist indirekt" (The German in me is indirect) about Namibian children in exile in the GDR. Dirk is the artistic director of the European network PlayOn! – New Storytelling with Immersive Technology, in the framework of which Budapest@Play was also developed.
Johanna Jäger After studying dramaturgy in Munich, she joined the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater in Sachsen-Anhalt as the leading dramaturge. She initiated a new focus on contemporary drama and politicized the theatrical discussion with the “25 Jahre Nachwende” series. In 2016 she moved to the Landesbühnen Sachsen as theater pedagogue and dramaturge, where cultural education and project management are now her main focus. She primarily develops participative formats and performative approaches for young audiences.
