Grottenschlecht #9

“MODEL CYBERSYN or THE BRAIN OF CHILE”

Fragmentary theatre text by Bärbel Strehlau | A performative reading between documentation, fiction, poetry, and sound composition

A performative reading between documentation, fiction, poetry, and sound compositionAmid the era of the Cold War, the first freely elected left-wing president, Salvador Allende, who took office on September 4, 1970, pursued a groundbreaking revolutionary idea of cybernetic socialism.

To realize his vision of a democratic economy, Allende found a kindred partner in the cybernetician Stafford Beer from England. On July 12, 1971, the two visionaries met. Allende was enthusiastic, and Stafford Beer stated his conditions before agreeing:

“I need 500 US dollars a day, chocolate, Scotch whisky, Chilean wine, and cigarettes.”

Chile’s Cybersyn project was initiated in complete secrecy by idealists, yet in a tragic way, it was ahead of its time.

“It is a call from the future for change. The drift has been broken, the world order shaken, and we find ourselves right in the middle of it. Creative solutions are needed. Perhaps in the future it will not be parliaments where the future is negotiated, but theatre spaces?!”

WORK IN PROGRESS
The theatre text is part of an artistic-political research project, for which the Vienna-based choreographer, director, and author Bärbel Strehlau received a working grant from the City of Vienna in 2024. As part of a residency funded by the City of Vienna in 2026, she is now able to develop an initial artistic realization at Schauspiel Köln in collaboration with the composer Holger Bey and members of the Schauspiel Köln ensemble.

The residency is supported by ACT OUT, a project of IG Freie Theaterarbeit Wien, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA), Vienna.