Pure War/The Madness of the Day

The Alchemical Theatre presents Pure War/Madness of the Day, their enigmatic examination of the coupling of metabolic and technological speed, and its inevitable consequences on consciousness, human appearance and the perception of one’s “place” in the world.

Texts are drawn from urban theorist Paul Virilio’s book Pure War, which questions the accelerating developments of technology, and French author Maurice Blanchot’s short story “The Madness of the Day.”

Individually the actors become Blanchot’s protagonist “The Disappeared One,” and together conspire to create a series of exhibits, confessions and briefings as a simulation of the relationship between technology and the human body. The actors employ techniques of “jazz acting” and biomechanics in a series of micro-narratives and vignettes.

Pure War/The Madness of the Day is set in a “box full of speeds” and images, and functions in the context of a public hearing. The actors place themselves under public scrutiny in a para-theatrical experience about the terms of appearance between actor, character and audience, pointing to the societal value of theatre as a technology of human interaction.

We live in a society where the substance of self is negated. The Age of Reason is transforming; and technology has become a contemporary prosthesis on consciousness. We are nearing that point of exhaustion in both the Enlightenment and ourselves where each of us disappears. The question “Who am I?” becomes increasingly eclipsed by the question “How do I appear?”

“…and if seeing was madness, I madly wanted that madness!” – Blanchot