Franke’s “The Orchid Cage” a spectacular theater performance
„Why should they think? Happiness comes from feeling, everything else is disturbing.”
Herbert W. Franke – “The Orchid Cage” 1961
The Founation closes this year with a report of HYPERRAUM.TV taking a very brief look at the international conference of the cross-generational Generative Art Summit, where the crème de la crème of the computer art scene met in July 2024: pioneers who shaped seven decades of this art movement with their digital works, art historians who accompanied them, and representatives of the youngest generation of artists who use classic codes as well as neural network models for their works.
The Foundation Herbert W. Franke brought an unusual performance to the stage with Sandfiction 4K: The Orchid Cage . It was based on Herbert’s visionary novel The Orchid Cage. The artist group Kaleidolux – actress Sarah Gros, also responsible for the text processing, sand painter Peter Kaiser, Peter Nickel (Violoncello) und Xoforo (electronic Keybord) – realized scenes from the visionary sci fi novel from 1961 translated into a painterly-concertante theater performance. The basic story of Sandfiction 4K: The human society lives largely in a perfected cyber-entertainment parallel world while leaving the real work to artificial intelligence. On an alien planet, they learn how such a world could develop further: with autonomous AI beings that perfect the well-intentioned service to humans to such an extent that they enable them to live forever, enjoy eternal security and eternal happiness … and thus lead them into an evolutionary horror scenario: the orchid cage.