A genuine confrontation or a staged reality? The time and place of GRAUTS is the set of a televised interview at the time of the launch of the interplanetary Voyager probes. In the post-LSD aftermath of psychedelic experimentation, a staged talk show teeters between documentary, hallucination, and concert.

This fabricated “real” story taps into the clash between the Host, the “new king” of the media (who invokes logic, order, and the need for control), and the Leader of the sect, a New Age persona (who provokes and deceives, pushing everything toward chaos). In today’s post-televisual era – a reality stripped of illusions – intense dialogues retrospectively expose the Host’s inability to intervene for the sake of truth. At the same time, the Leader’s destructive cynicism advances, fully armed with her magical arsenal. Appeals to reason and control bow before the revelation of the self. The Camerawoman, the Floor manager, and the Makeup artist, once silent support staff, become agents of this deconstruction. The banality of the television set is transformed into a site where personal and collective trauma emerge.

Performed live by an onstage band, Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (1901–1904), set to poems by Friedrich Rückert, is reworked into psychedelic and punk variations that intrude organically, as if breaching the work from within. At the same time, an AI system is employed, along with an original interactive tool.

Drawn from various languages, the title GRAUTS is a coined word that renders the work’s inner soundworld: a whisper, a scratch, a growl.

The show does not end in a whimper. It ends in a bang.

Content warning: The performance includes nudity. Suitable for ages 16+