The Research Training Group GRK 2833 “East Asian Futures” co-organizes the theater event “Das Licht”, which will be held on June 12, 2024 at the Musisches Zentrum of the Ruhr University Bochum. The play adapts the sci-fi short story “Kai guang” (开光) by award-winning author Chen Qiufan 陈楸帆 and was produced by and with Clara Dittrich, Marie-Kristin Kirschner, Imke Daum and Niklas Strang, who met while studying performART at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter.
The event will feature an introduction by Dr. Marc Hermann (University of Bonn) and a subsequent panel discussion on visions of the future in China and Europe with Prof. René Harder (Alanus), Dr. Marc Hermann and Prof. Dr. Christine Moll-Murata (RUB), hosted by Prof. Dr. Christian Schwermann (RUB).
Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Admission: 6:00 pm, start: 6:30 pm
Venue: Theater in the Musisches Zentrum (RUB)
Admission only with prior registration via info@east-asian-futures.de. The Deadline for registration is May 22, 2024. Please note that the play and discussion will be held in German.
Synopsis
The protagonist of the story, Zhou Chongbai, is a moderately talented advertising strategist in a marketing company whose clients are various start-ups. He manages to pull off a big coup with a cheap trick and helps the “Buddhagram” app to achieve great success. Soon people everywhere were using the app, believing it had the power to spread miraculous healing and blessings through photography.
But the hype doesn’t last long. Chongbai’s scam is exposed. In order to hide from angry users, Chongbai joins a Buddhist monastery. There, the great master Deta explains to him that the technology he was dealing with is about far more than he can understand. More specifically, it is about the destabilization and destruction of the universe by an algorithm that is trying to penetrate its programming.
Can our hero prevent the downfall of the universe? Or is it perhaps not about him at all? Is Chongbai not, as previously thought, the main character of the big game, but merely an NPC, a pre-programmed secondary character who has to submit to his fate without a will?