Hillerbrand+Magsamen
147 Devices for Integrated Principles
Written by Kirk Lynn, Music by Peter Stopschinski
"147 Devices for Integrated Principles" unfolds on stage as Hillerbrand+Magsamen unpack a large “preparedness box” of items while the audience unpacks their own smaller box found under their seat, based on the artist’s instructions for how to use the items.
Applying a Fluxus sensibility to art historical tropes of still life painting, photography, and dramatic theater, Hillerbrand+Magsamen playfully engage audiences in the drama of survival.
Hillerbrand+Magsamen perform the explanation of these devices through photography, video, sculpture, and performance, punctuated with Lynn’s experimental and humorous scripted language and Stopshinski’s score. Overlapping screens of varying sizes display a video, continuously panning to the right, that reveals the artists and their children interacting with Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions. The images depict sublime survival, inviting audiences to play with ideas and expectations of “preparedness.”