HYPHEMIND

Developing »magic spaces« and using all digital possibilities to provide an interesting and auratic concert experience even for a distant audience was the artistic survival strategy of the Neue Vocalsolisten in the first months of the pandemic. Andreas Eduardo Frank was the composer of the pilot project »Super Safe Society«. Last but not least, the creative achievements from this project led to an attractive online ECLAT festival a year ago.

In 2022, we step it up and design a hybrid music theater that goes beyond digital skills to intertwine the two stage spaces (physical and virtual) and the two audiences (near and far). Thus was born the idea for HYPHEMIND, the piece about the intertwining and weaving and networking that hyphae and mycelia so fascinatingly demonstrate to us in all areas of life.

»They are there. Everywhere. They explore the soil for us, looping around root threads, picking up messengers and sending us their information.«

Together, the composer, the directing team, the interpreters and the three communication designers–who are also already on the »team of the first hour«–develop a real-virtual expedition into the whimsical world of fungi.  What can we learn from these specialists of symbioses and networks? How do our human ideas of individuality, intelligence and society work from their perspective? Can we even overcome the crisis of the anthropocene with them and arrive at new forms of coexistence between humans, nature and machines?

»Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. Without you, the Hyphemind would remain just one of those utopias. But with you we will succeed in bringing man, nature and machines into a new relationship. Life worth living is still possible. And as you may already sense: we are already forming a strong network!…«