Digitales Theater

Description of measures

„√My“ is a participatory, transmedia theater series by the drama department of Theater Altenburg Gera, which is told serially via theater performances, an app, live events and social media elements. The audience becomes an active part of the narrated world of the fictional city-state of Mytopia in the year 2121. The audience can join one of these factions during the performances in the theater or when using the app and help determine the progress of the plot from within the story. The involvement of participants in the project is made possible on three levels - the narrative level of the story, the game level and the real world. A team of authors takes the decisions of the community into account during the course of the project and draws the resulting consequences for further development. The plot is inspired by the Russian science fiction novel "We" (Russian: My) by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) from 1920.

With this innovative project, Theater Altenburg Gera is positioning itself at a new interface between the digital and analog worlds. The participatory approach renegotiates the role of a municipal theater in the region. The concept underwent international mentoring by the Academy for Children's Media 2020/21, in which Dr. Sophie Oldenstein took part as a scholarship holder.
The app is being developed in collaboration with a team of developers from the Academy for Digitality and Theater Dortmund. The Academy was founded in 2019 as a project of "Smart City Dortmund" and is an innovative think tank for digitality in the theatrical space or theater in the digital space.

The My app is a mixture of social network and mobile game. It allows users to immerse themselves in the world of the story through their own, self-created character and uses augmented reality and geocaching elements to establish the city as a playing field for the plot. This is not a simple provision of technology, but an artistic collaboration with selected digital theater creators who are pioneers in their field.

The aim of the collaboration is to develop a model platform for establishing a storyworld in real space. There are hardly any pioneering projects in the field of digitality and theater. Especially in times of the corona crisis, it is becoming painfully clear how limited the current possibilities are to experience theater in the digital space.
The project sets itself apart from traditional theater by mixing fiction with real life. The theater does not end with the performance, but accompanies the audience in everyday life. The interaction with other group members via the app and social networks encourages them to reflect on their own actions.

The project fundamentally pursues a participatory educational approach. Participants will be able to influence the development of the story, the content of the episodes and live events. With its dystopian content and the question of adaptation or rebellion, "√My" will be a political experimental laboratory.