Skype me up to the stars!
(Virtual Performances – laboratory for virtual theatre)
(2009)

“Skype me up to the stars!” is the second work from the “Virtual Performances” laboratory. It consisted in a Skype transmission from Córdoba and Buenos Aires to Leipzig, for the commemoration of the International Year of Astronomy.

The transmission from Córdoba was held at the Astronomical Observatory Museum of the National University, with participation of an actor who played astronomer. On the other side an actress-astrologer participated from a café in Buenos Aires.

At the location of the audience, Leipzig, the piece generally pretended to be a lecture on the subject of Astronomy, which over time became increasingly fictional. During the first part of the set there was a small exhibition with related objects, and two “experts” were invited from Argentina to discuss the topic, with whom viewers could contact individually via Skype. Later on, the event was shown on a large screen, keeping its documentary-scientific character, always in a spirit of public interaction and maintaining a relationship with the place of transmission.

What started as a conference gradually took on fictional elements, until ending in a nearly absurd scene of an Ed Wood style alien invasion of the Cordoba Observatory.

“Skype me up to the stars!” was debuted in June 2009 at the LOFFT theatre festival in Leipzig.

CAST:

Concept and direction:
Meret Kiderlen (Leipzig, Germany) + BiNeural-MonoKultur (Ariel Dávila + Christina Ruf)

With:
BUENOS AIRES:
ASTROLOGER Carolina Defossé VIDEO Ivo Aichenbaum ASTROLOGICAL CONSULTING Willy Gugliermo
CÓRDOBA:
ASTRONOMER Hernán Rossi Fraire MUSIC Guillermo Ceballos ASTRONOMICAL CONSULTING Guillermo Goldes
LEIPZIG:
ASISSTANT DIRECTOR Judith Schrodtkötter CONSULTING María Cabrera Rivero ASISSTANT PRODUCER Claudia Gartner,
Franziska Janetzky RECEPTION Annemarie Saß, Enrico Michelini, María Cabrera Rivero
VIDEO TECHNIQUE Matthias Gruner PHOTOGRAPHY Paúl Escobar NETWORK TECHNOLOGY Alexander Gross
Thanks to observatory Sternwarte Eilenburg + astronomical museum “D. F. Sarmiento – Dr. B. A. Gould” of Cordoba National University Astronomical Observatory.

DURATION: approx. 60 min.