Spinoza is(s)t..
(2007)

Spinoza’s independent character, his innovative thinking and his differences with Church and State drive the drama to unfold and move forward from early schooling to banishment. The project has been coined by critics as a ‘Spinoza-Sammelsarium’ and is a seventy-minute experience in the life of the philosopher Spinoza. It lets the audience experience Spinoza’s as a philosopher synaesthetically: Sound- and video effects aid in the unfolding of a complete Spinozian cosmos and lead the viewer to witness that the cutting of lenses and the sharpening of the mind have light at their base. Stylistically, the work is a new media theater piece with performative character, conceived for three actors, live electronics and a twenty-seven-part cube. The drama’s journey begins with his formative years as a student and continues until his banishment from Amsterdam by the church, the state and the synagogue. The various stations in Spinoza’s life are transfigured into being by the diconfiguration of the cube. He begins in „School“, where the students are formed by the preconceptions of those in charge. The path winds further through to the „City“; Existence as willing cogs, endless movement and rush, in which mankind is pulled into. A „Ruin“ results out of the elements of the City and Spinoza finds himself at the end of his life. He ponders over his life as a lens grinder and philosophy. Church and State, who are responsible for his censorship, come forth. The „Banishment“ ends the work and closes to the final transfiguration of the cube. On elements of a wall one reads CAUTE, the Latin word for CAUTION.Theater Group: Art Clay, Urs Jaeggi & Erratum EnsemblePerformance Space: Städtische Bühnen Freiburg Germany; Pumpenhaus, Münster Germany, EWZ, Zurich Switzerland; Malzfabrik, Berlin, Germany