Un-walling the wall

When a theatre audience looks at a realistic set, how do they interpret the room? Is it a forbidden place? Are the walls just obstacles one can walk through or ignore? Think of Nora and the famous door. Think of Chekhov and the house and all the interpretations of his plays traditionally and classically. According to Aviv Kochavi, a brigadier general in the IDF, we are looking at it from the wrong perspective. It is time for us to go through the set.

Future military attacks on urban terrain will increasingly be dedicated to using technologies developed for ‘Un-walling the wall’, to borrow a term from Gordon Matta Clark.

The desire to unveil and go beyond the wall could explain the military’s interest in transgressive theories and art in the 1960s and 1970s.

In Un-Walling the Wall, a cut or section of a house will take center stage. A realistic house is a set that can serve many so-called ‘slice of life’ plays.

We will then go to work, dismantling the house, the walls, and the set. We will conduct a forensic investigation into the theory, practice, and army doctrine of ‘walking through walls,’ using all the tools at our disposal – video, audio, published text, interviews, reenactments of documentary material, and fictionalized scenarios.

Performers: Susanne Gschwendtner, Anat Stainberg, Markus Zett, Tom Crawley, Tobias Resch, Yosi Wanunu, Michael Strohmann, Paul Horn, Marietta Dang
Music/Sound: Michael Strohmann
Video: Nira Pereg, Michael Strohmann
Set design: Paul Horn
Assistance Set: Roland Schmidt
Make-up: Marietta Dang
Special Effects: N.N.
Written and directed by Yosi Wanunu
Produced by Kornelia Kilga