We are bringing today’s Wunderkind of the performing arts to Brussels! Julian Hetzel is causing a furore with his highly visual theatre, installation works and lecture performances. In a non-linguistic, yet by no means silent way, his work takes on the confrontation with today’s neoliberal economy.

Bare fists – swords – crossbows – guns – rockets – drones. The history of human conflict is a story of ever more brutal force used over ever great distances. The strongest party has withdrawn from the battlefield altogether, to launch bombs from a comfortable control room thousands of kilometres away. What ethics can we still apply now that war and computer games can hardly be told apart, and the enemy has been reduced to a cluster of pixels on a screen? 

The Automated Sniper examines the gamification of violence: two performers are shot at, live on stage, by an operator with a remote-controlled automatic weapon suspended above the audience. The operator is in a safe place in the Middle East, but present through a live internet connection. More than ever before, the act of violence is more virtual than real. What does this distance do to us? A lecture on warfare is literally shot to pieces before the audience’s eyes, culminating in a choreography of fear.