kin_

‘kin_’ is an explorative dance piece that, as an AR application for your own smartphone or tablet, deals with both human physicality and body-based art through and with digital technology. The English term ‘kin’ stands for family, clan and kinship - and suggests a closeness that is constantly scrutinised in this work: One to three dancing avatars move around the augmented space of the theatre building and can be approached and experienced through the user screens on display. In situations of intimacy or the search for connection and humanity, the avatar dancers sometimes directly involve the viewers - everyone can directly influence the events through their own movement and interaction, as the avatars react to proximity and distance, movement or even wind impulses. How close do you get?

Two realities intertwine here and sometimes collide with each other. A fundamental constant of human intimacy, the experience of closeness, can be questioned in this work, as can the boundary at which observation becomes surveillance. Who acts here - and who reacts? Is the encounter with the unknown successful?

Soundtrack Brigitta Muntendorf, digital costume & make-up Inès Alpha. ‘kin_’ was shown at the Slamdance Festival and the Tokyo Film Festival, among others, and won national and international awards. The work is freely downloadable from the Appstore.

The Theatre of Augmented Realities is a research and development project by Theater an der Ruhr in collaboration with the Academy for Theatre and Digitality and the MIREVI Lab at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, funded as part of NEUE WEGE by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.