FFF3 | Web of Trust

‘It doesn’t look like theatre, but it is. Indeed, it is the best kind of theatre that exists’, as one writer has described the work Hungarian director Edit Kaldor (b. 1969). Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage’, Kaldor seems to counter-propose ‘all cyberspace is a stage’. Born in Budapest, raised in the USA, and based in Amsterdam, the internationally acclaimed and pioneering director makes use of the Internet’s cosmopolitanism, the real-time deterritorialized interactions of social networks and the mass democracy of cyberspace.

“Web of Trust” is a networked theatre performance that brings the internet, and more specifically, a new social media platform into the theatre, and uses it as its stage. A group of disparate people have been driven together by their growing discontent to unite online and to articulate ideas for a different society. The work deals with the act of formulating and negotiating ideals, with the relationship of words to actions, and of the individual to the collective.

“Web of Trust” builds on the experiences of the long term theatre and research project“ Inventory of Powerlessness” that marked her debut in Greece in November 2015 at Transitions Festival: 3 / Central Europe through an invitation from the Onassis Stegi. This project was initiated by Edit Kaldor in 2012 and has since then been developed in close collaboration with a few hundred participants in different cities in Europe. In a collective setting they map the connections between the different forms of individual powerlessness, that provide the content of a digital database, revealing a complex portrait of the distress, anxiety and strength.

The formal language of “Web of Trust”, however, more closely echoes “Or Press Escape”, Kaldor’s performance from 2003. Just like the earlier piece, it focuses on the metaphoric potential of daily computer use, highlights its theatrical qualities, and uses the computer screen to zoom in on and engage with the thinking process that lurks behind ideas and actions.

“Web of Trust” will open at the Onassis Stegi just a few days after its world premiere at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels.