"What I really like about Katharina Simons' work is the fearlessness (please understand this quite positively) with which very popular formats, especially from the field of gaming, a pop-oriented aesthetic and rather difficult and presuppositional themes are combined."
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Diekmann on "CALL OF MORAL DUTY"
"Simons thus remains true to her roots: she unites theatre and mediality and lets them enter into a symbiosis. (...) In a quirky way, all the senses are addressed: you hear, you see - but you also smell, taste and feel."
Franka Potzler - professional copywriter with a degree in theatre studies on "CALL OF MORAL DUTY"
"Call of Moral Duty is "a trial within an intimate atmosphere, in which the observers and co-deciders are confronted with their own moral compass.""
Sebastian Kraus, Augsburger Allgemeine on "CALL OF MORAL DUTY"
Katharina Simons
Katharina Simons* is a freelance director for multimedia performance art.
Since 2019 she has been publishing her artistic works under the label CUTTY SHELLS, works which generate new phenomena of perception in the field of tension between reality - virtuality and the material - immaterial. The first step towards a new (better world) begins with a change in perception - this is the philosophy of CUTTY SHELLS.
The works always follow an interdisciplinary and scientific approach and interweave theory with aesthetic practice. They follow the vision of developing interdisciplinary hybrid spaces between performing arts and virtual space, making use of performative practice to create authenticity in the intermedial in-between space, thus engendering new phenomena of perception. The focus of Simons’ artistic work is the examination of concepts of reality, their aspects of perception and forms of alienation. To this end she focuses primarily on visual aspects of an aesthetic, which is always oriented towards pop culture phenomena and characterised by hyperbolic embodiments and sculptural representations. The intimate atmospheres, created within alien worlds, bring new desires and truths to the surface. In the field of tension between fiction and reality, humour and provocation, surreal and intense productions are created that burn themselves into the retina like a beacon.
*Katharina Simons studied theatre and media studies with a minor in philosophy at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg. Discovering that her dual interest in both theatre and in media studies to be an massive artistic dichotomy, Simons switched to the University in Hildesheim for her Master's degree. In the degree programme "Staging the Arts and the Media" she found her focus: the intermedial in-between space - performative practice under intermedial conditions. She also accompanies innovative dance and performance projects in the independent scene as a dramaturge.
Current work
EXIT THROUGH THE UNIVERSE
Conceptual planning: May - December 2022
EXIT THROUGH THE UNIVERSE is the conceptual planning period and content research of an interdisciplinary project that thematically deals with the current trend of techno-shamanism and draws momentum in the field of tension between virtuality and spirituality. At the interface between physical body, film, scenography and virtual-world-building, a concept for both museum and theatrical space will be designed through transmedial storytelling. The goal of the conceptual planning period and the artistic process is the completion of a storyboard with filmic, as well as performative sketches and a spatial concept that works with analogue 360° perspectives.
Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK - STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR. Aid Programme Dance.
Core Piece
Research period: May – August 2022
"Core Piece" is a practical, as well as a theoretical, research project that explores and looks for staging strategies which concentrate on and present the essence of things. The focus is on the process which is needed to reveal "the core" of a thing.
The project is supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In addition, the project will be further developed in August as part of Barbara Bess' Artist in Residence programme.
VIRTUAL ENLIGHTENMENT
Research period: January - July 2022
"Virtual Enlightenment" is an interdisciplinary research project on the topic of digitality and spirituality. The content-related research focuses primarily on the origins of spirituality. Why and for what reasons do humans need spirituality? Is spirituality something that becomes more tangible within the digital space?
The artistic-practical research takes an interdisciplinary approach and searches for an aesthetic language to reflect and provoke similar sensual-spiritual experiences through art and digital media.
The project takes place within the framework of the scholarship "Young Art and New Ways".
Archiv
CALL OF MORAL DUTY – an interactive livestream performance
Premiere: 14.10.2021
One word. You are hyped!
One word. You are cancelled!
One joke. Who do you decide to be?
The performance is an immersive encounter. An encounter with the construct of one's own morality, accompanied by text passages from Nietzsche's "so spake Zarathustra". The audience anonymously decides on the moral course of the performance.
A flashy, surreal visual language, filled with tingling objects and whispering, munching symbols, leads social understandings of art and morality ad absurdum. Captured and followed by the eye of a moving camera, this playful scenario creates a headstrong and intimate atmosphere, which puts one's own moral compass and integrity to the test.
The project is a co-production with the Tafelhalle Nuremberg in the KunstKulturQuartier and is made possible by the Bavarian State Association for Contemporary Dance (BLZT) with funds from the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art, the City of Nuremberg and the Cultural Foundation of the Sparkasse Nuremberg, as well as with the kind support of the Tanzzentrale der Region Nürnberg e.V..
BIRTH OF FERTLITY – an interactive livestream performance
Premiere: 11.10.2019
The performer moves as a game character in the performance space. The participants in the stream influence what happens on stage. It is a game. A game about theatre, that can only be experienced in the performative act and in the tension between performing and observing, the visible and the non-visible, the material and the immaterial. A play that attempts to transport virtual space onto the stage and to use virtuality as a performance space. In the background questions about the structures and programming of theatre sizzle away, questions which can be rediscovered, lost, dissolved or can break out within this scenographic arrangement.
The project was funded by the Regional Council of the Studentenwerk OstNiedersachsen, the Studentenwerk OstNiedersachen and the Institute for Theatre, Media and Popular Culture of the Foundation University of Hildesheim.
