2099

Photographed for Center for Political Beauty.

The political theatre performance 2099 displays a group of time travellers from the future returning to our moment carrying the knowledge of coming catastrophes, political crimes and assassinations. Four philosophers step onto the stage to confront the beginning of the century with its possible end and to ask whether history can still be redirected before it is too late.

At the core of the piece lies the idea of a fundamental flaw in human imagination. Drawing on Alexander Kluge’s concept of a promethian gap, the performance explores the distance between the moment when political organisation would be necessary and the later moment when awareness painfully arrives. People who are only beginning to explore their political will are confronted with the judgement of history, with the question of responsibility and with the tragic insight that understanding often comes when action is no longer possible.