Situation Rooms

There are hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation worldwide, and an estimated 14 billion pieces of ammunition are produced each year. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the USA, Russia and Germany are the world’s largest weapons exporters.
The project “Situation Rooms” has shrunk the globalised arms trade down to a space of 15 x 12 square metres.

The three artists of Rimini Protokoll have teamed up with the set designer Dominic Huber and video artist Chris Kondek to develop a stage/film set comprised of ten to 15 different rooms. The audience members were not seated off stage, but were integrated into the set as actors themselves. Equipped with iPods and headphones, they wandered through the rooms and followed a film on their display. Every eight minutes, they changed their identity in the film. First they played the role of a money-laundering agent, then a Greek tank driver, and then a Philippine gunsmith manufacturing handguns. As they encountered one another in the rooms, they interacted according to their specific identities. The audience members engaged in an intricately woven “shooting” from multiple perspectives.
“Situation Rooms” was a co-production by the Kultur Ruhr GmbH, the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Parc et Grande Halle de la Villette Paris and the HAU Berlin. The world premiere took place during the Ruhr Triennial 2013.

Artistic directors: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel (alias Rimini Protokoll)

Artists: Dominic Huber, Chris Kondek and others