FRENEMIES FOREVER? the polytix of friendship
a live stream performance with young people from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
How do friendships function “in dark times” (Hannah Arendt)? Do they deform in the stress test of exception rules and contact restrictions? How sustainable are they on the platforms of digital tech giants, where friends and followers teem, while the unfriend click is always just a finger’s length away? Is it possible to poke through one’s own filter bubble despite and with YouTube? Inspired by the political concept of friendship by the Jewish German-American theorist and famous friend Hannah Arendt, the performance group andcompany&Co. is founding a “theatre of virtual friendship” with a control centre in Berlin: together with young vloggers and influencers from Germany, Israel and the USA, they meet in digital rehearsal rooms, philosophise, discuss and dare utopian views of this very special relationship in viral challenges. In the process, they infiltrate YouTube through a literal tunnel system whose various paths lead to a joint online performance: as a conversation and activity of many with many.