Górnicka Requiemachine

Marta GórnickaMultitude12.09.–08.11.2020Gallery Weekend BerlinEbensperger ⅋ Luxoom LabMarta GórnickaRequiemachine2013Video42’ Produced by Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, WarsawREQUIEMACHINE is a radical political statement that exposes the foundations of the neoliberal social system. It is choral theatrical essay about the enslaving power of the system that turns the human subject into a mere cog in the wheel. In a posthuman world everyone becomes a worker/labour robot, hostage to the reproduced ideology of the labour society, torn between superhuman work and the terror of unemployment. REQUIEMACHINE, which premiered in 2013, was a continuation of Marta Górnicka’s project for a modern tragic CHORUS that serves as a means of critical reflection on humans as they are shaped by the norms of culture, society, economy and religion. This time, the voice of the CHORUS was directed against the universaldomination of market forces. It was the body/voice of a society torn between the fear of unemployment and the excessive demands of the workplace. The collage libretto made use of poems by the Polish poet Władysław Broniewski, a socialist involved in attempts to construct an egalitarian Poland, who experienced the defeat of his ideas. “I am the burnt sacrificial offering of every system,” Broniewski wrote, highlighting the dramatic tension between the crushing pressure of ideology and his belief in the power of the poetic word that was supposed to revolutionize the world and to save human subjectivity. Today, these texts, transposed onto the choral apparatus of the collective body and voice, are truly striking. Revolutionary poems from the 1930s sound like a corporate anthem extolling high-efficiency performance in the workplace.Artist StatementREQUIEMASZYNA is an essay about the relationship between money and power. It was originally inspired by the robotic rhythms of Broniewski’s poetry and his harrowing biography, which I mashed up with Benetton’s Unemployee of the Year advertising campaign, the Imperial March from Star Wars, Social Realist songs, heavy metal music, and the rasp of the poet's cancer-stricken voice. I wanted to expose the totalitarianism of contemporary strategies of supervision and discipline: mechanisms that transform residents of the neo-liberal paradise into an army of robotic workers.Co-produced by La Filature – Scène Nationale, Mulhouse, Le Maillon – Théâtre de Strasbourg, Ringlokschuppen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Théâtre National de Strasbourg CastAntoni Beksiak, Justyna Chaberek, Maciej Dużyński, Michał Głowacki, Bartos Grędysa, Mateusz Gudelis, Anna Jagłowska, Borys Jaźnicki, Ewa Konstanciak, Adam Konowalski, Wiesław Kowalski, Grzegorz Kuraszkiewicz, Janusz Leśniewski, Maciej Łagodziński, Kamila Michalska, Grzegorz Milczarczyk, Jakub Mróz, Magda Roma Przybylska, Anna Rączkowska, Dominika Stefańska, Dawid Wawryka, Anna Wodzyńska, Łukasz Wójcicki, Marcin Zarzeczny CreditsLibretto based on texts by Władysław Broniewski. Concept, libretto, direction: Marta Górnicka. Musical score: IEN. Choreography: Anna Godowska. Literary advisor: Agata Adamiecka. Set design: Robert Rumas. Costumes: Arek Ślesiński. Light design: Tomasz Sierotko. Stage management: Marek Susdorf, Film editing: Maria Smereczyńska Images© Marta Ankiersztejnmade with Lay Theme