delhiculture-lis: Virtuelle Mauer/ ReConstructing the Wall

[Karishma Pais]

From: <bat...@delhi.goethe.org>

Virtuelle Mauer/ ReConstructing the Wall

3D Virtual Reality Installation by T+T (Tamiko Thiel & Teresa Reuter) Friday, 11.12.2009 to Friday, 18.12.2009 10 am to 6.30 pm Siddhartha Hall, Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan For decades the Berlin Wall was a symbol of repression and of the division of Germany, Europe and indeed the entire world into two politically opposing systems. For the East German government, that built the Wall to prevent its own citizens from fleeing to the West, it was the “anti-fascist protective barrier.” For the West German government, which refused to officially recognize its existence, it was the „Wall of Shame,“ an “unlawful” consequence of the East-West conflicts of the Cold War. Only a year after the Fall of the Wall in November 1989, almost all traces of it had been removed – people in both East and West Berlin wanted to eliminate the Wall as quickly as possible. For those who did not experience the Wall themselves, the threat posed by the Wall, the constraints it created in everyday life and the ongoing political and sociological divisions it engendered as a psychological “wall in people heads” are not comprehensible today. Developed in close collaboration with the Berlin Wall Memorial Concept of the Berlin Senate, the interactive 3D virtual reality installation “Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall” recreates a kilometer-long section of the Wall and its surrounding neighborhoods in East and West Berlin. Exploring the virtual space, users' movements and actions trigger dramatic encounters with events spanning the 1960s–2000s. They are protagonists in a surrealist dream – not as all-powerful border guards, but in the role of normal Berlin residents living “in the shadow of the Wall.” For further details please call 011-3329506 extn - 110

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