The desire to escape our own destiny, to modulate and to control it seems to be immanent in every human being. Unintentionally, however, we become the target of our own destiny and are tossed about by reality and imagination - just like Oedipus the King.
With his documentary productions and theatrical forms Wang Jianwei displays the wounds of our era and criticises Chinese society - subtle and outright at the same time. Starting point for his most recent project "Welcome you to the true desert" is a true story: a 16 year-old boy moves from the countryside to the city with his parents. Overwhelmed by all the new impressions he seeks his role in life and flees reality by immersing himself in the world of Internet games. It is not long before his worlds start to intermingle; what is real and what is not? Philosophical background of the project is Jacques Lacan's notion of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary. Mixing videos, performances, sounds and installations with each other, Wang Jianwei leads us into Lacan's universe, and creates a trans-boundary space that serves as a playground for the performers on stage. They take on various identities, follow different behaviour patterns and change costumes and working equipment. They operate in an inconsistent, artificial world - our world.
The title is a quotation of Zizek's booktitle "welcome you to the desert of the real". His philosophical concept is represented in the Performance.
This is a co-production of the ZÜRICH THEATER SPEKTAKEL and CULTURESCAPES
