This video-installation is based on a spectral representation of all nouns. All the nouns found in the Italian dictionary (and then translated in other languages) are projected, in a sequence, one by one, onto a giant screen.
These nouns potentially represent all objects in reality that have a name. The speed of this sequence is given by our ability, based on our retina and our memory, to retain a word that appears in a flash, lasting one-twentieth of a second. This constricts our gaze, which soon reaches a tipping point where a fusion occurs, just before our perception loses its grip. In the resulting flicker, it is no longer possible to distinguish the single terms. In the borderline situation created by this frenetic series of words, some of them will leave a trace on each spectator’s visual cortex, while others, the majority, will be lost. The spectator, defenceless when treated in this way, is subjected to the human word, as a matter of quantity. Not what, but how much. This furious bundle of nouns leaves no room for choice nor discernment. The nucleus of language returns to white noise, which leads to chaos.
The Third Reich is the image of an imposed, obligatory communication, whose violence is matched by its claim to equality. Here, a language-machine depletes entire spheres of reality, as the nouns are all the same, mechanically mass-produced, like prefabricated buildings in a knowledge that leaves no room to escape.
All pauses are abolished, occupied. The pause, or the absence of words, becomes a battlefield for the words and their military aggression; the nouns from the dictionary, projected on the screen, are flags planted in a conquered land.
The projection will be preceded by a symbolic action in which a performer brings to life a ceremony in which language is “ignited”. The sound that accompanies the installation, composed by Scott Gibbons, will be apodictic.
The Third Reich by Romeo Castellucci is preceded by Echolalias, the Amnesia of Forgotten Sounds (20′) by Sofia Jernberg. This combined programme of two adjacent, but separate moments, is created specifically for Short Theatre 2023 and Teatro Nazionale | Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. The proximity of the two works, not intended as a single body, acts in this context as a dyad on language and its power.
Director and stage, lighting and costume designer Romeo Castellucci is known throughout the world for creating a theatre founded on the totality of the arts and aimed at an integral perception. He has also written various theoretical essays on directing. His theatre engages in a type of dramaturgy that overturns the primacy of literature, thus becoming a complex and supple form of art, a theatre made of extraordinarily rich images expressed in a language as comprehensible as music, sculpture, painting or architecture.
His stagings are regularly invited to and produced by the most prestigious international theatres, opera houses and festivals, in over fifty countries covering all the continents. Among his most recent creations: The Minister’s Black Veil inspired by Hawthorne’s parable (2016), Jeanne au bûcher by Arthur Honegger (2017), Democracy in America freely inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville (2017), Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner (2017) and Salomé by Richard Staruss (2018).
Triple award received for the 2018-19 season by Romeo Castellucci for Salomé from the “Oscars” of European Opera, a survey by the German magazine Opernwelt among fifty international music critics: Award to Romeo Castellucci for “Best Show”, “Best Director Award”, “Best Production Designer Award”. At the end of 2018, the project “Un automne avec Romeo Castellucci” sees the presentation of: The magic flute by Amadeus Mozart in La Monnaie, the opening of the History of oil painting exhibition in Bozar and the latest theatrical creation entitled La vita nuova a Kanal – Center Pompidou, performance who questions the collective destiny and art. In January 2019 he made his debut at Opera Garnier in Paris with Il primo omicidio by Alessandro Scarlatti. Romeo Castellucci is Grand Invité at Milan Triennale for the period 2021-2024
For Opera production in the summer 2022, Romeo Castellucci presented Resurrection by Gustav Mahler at Festival Aix en Provence and for Salzburg Festival Bluebeard’s castle by Béla Bartók followed by De temporum fine comoedia by Carl Orff. Teodor Currentzis on the podium and Romeo Castellucci directing. For theater productions, Bros continues the tour with great success.
by Romeo Castellucci
Sounds by Scott Gibbons
Video making Luca Mattei in collaboration with Giulia Colla
IT consultancy Alessandro Colla
Production Direction Benedetta Briglia
Promotion and Distribution Gilda Biasini
Production and Tour Caterina Soranzo
Technical Direction Rocìo España
Production Socìetas
image still from The Third Reich
