The first year-long exhibition in the Puppentheatersammlung’s new home in Kraftwerk Mitte is an immersive multimedia installation. The multi-room experience was conceived, designed and realised by the internationally renowned label Rimini Protokoll. Travelling through the spaces of the exhibition, the audience falls under the spell of an automated presentation in which puppet theatre becomes a metaphor for a digital world full of invisible threads.

Can puppets be seen as the predecessors of artificial intelligence? Where is the boundary between the visible threads of that original avatar, the puppet, and the algorithms of an automated, or even self-learning system? The legend of the autonomous puppet, a puppet that rebels against its creator and player can be found throughout the history of puppet theatre. Time and again, our perception, fired on by our empathy and our mirror neurones, has emancipated the puppets and made them independent. That legend is seamlessly adaptable to the virtual stage of digital image production, where it has taken on a new political explosiveness.

Helgard Haug and Stefan Kaegi together with Daniel Wetzel founded the theatre label Rimini Protokoll in 2000. They have been working under this name in various constellations ever since, developing plays, interventions, scenic installations and radio plays. They also like to express spaces or social systems in theatrical formats. Many of their works are interactive and are characterised by a playful approach to technology.

In co-operation with the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch (Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts), Abteilung Zeitgenössische Puppenspielkunst (Department of Contemporary Puppetry).