Folkteatern launches AI mockumentary about fictional cultural center Folk tower

Performing arts is a team sport. It is enough to look at the credits to understand it, or at the list of actors and responsibilities for any set: props, lighting, dramaturgy, poster image ... Not even a small monologue, with ever-so-sparing technology and scenography, can't get by on one person.

At the same time, of course, each season has its stars, celebrities and originals: Suzanne Reuter who is current in "Summer Night's Smile", Christoffer Nyqvist who is going on a stand-up tour, Timofej Kuljabin who directs "Gengångere" and the duo Jennie Bergsli and Molly Engblom who dance with seven tons of clay.

Folkteatern's artistic director Frida Röhl received Beyoncé and Madonna on the roof's helipad

However, it is difficult to compete with the parade of world names that attended the opening of the new cultural center Folk tower in Gothenburg. Folkteatern's artistic director Frida Röhl received Beyoncé and Madonna on the roof's helipad. Obama, Macron and Merkel were all on hand to cut the ribbon.

Okay, none of this actually happened. It's a hallucination in the form of an AI mockumentary from Folkteatern, launched on Youtube as a countdown to the election. The fantasy building Folk tower is 30 centimeters higher than the adjacent Hotell Draken and is described as the result of a "cultural big bang": suddenly both business leaders and politicians wanted to bet everything on culture.

In reality, the Folkteatern has recently been threatened with closure, because right-wing politicians in the region condemned the operation as "a sosse project"

Possibly this satire reflects a cultural political resignation. No wonder: in reality, the Folkteatern has recently been threatened with closure, after right-wing politicians in the region condemned the operation as "a sleazy project". "Folk nation" resembles a cry for help, a fever dream of popular uprising, where people in yellow warning vests climb up the 80 meter high Eriksberg crane with "Save the culture" banners.

What are we going to do with culture? Who is it for? Who builds it?

If performing arts is a team sport, the audience is the twelfth player, as they say in football. It's pointless to play for empty stands. And autumn offers several opportunities to storm onto the field, I mean the stage.

Interactive theater is trending - including Dramaten's "A love story" where two people from the audience play the main roles. It is far from the only example of outstretched hands through the fourth wall. Perhaps the courtship of the audience is just a reminder that performing arts is something we do together, a purely democratic affair.

In "Folk nation", the powerful protest movement is initiated by an individual visitor who starts to spontaneously dance outside the Folkteatern's entrance. It might be worth a try?