S  ECTI VE is an austrian audiovisual performance duo consisting of Arno Deutschbauer and Micha Elias Pichlkastner based in between Linz, Austria and Toronto, Canada.

The duo team strives to create immersive audiovisual experiences through abstract narratives and emotional journies that circle around the ambigious relations of humans and machines and all the spaces in b e t w e e n.

In Timișoara they will present for the first time the S ECTI VE – [hol'-os], a performance in which they are reflecting on how we as communities respond to the way we increasingly interact with each other through devices, machines, and media and how this ‹processed› information changes the way we perceive the world and the people around us. Recent events have accelerated the shift from direct human interaction towards virtual and digital communication. These changes can not only have profound effects on our physical and mental health, but also separate us from the people around us and make it harder to communicate sensitively and compassionately. It’s increasingly harder for us to filter relevant from less relevant information and the way social media and other communication platforms function tend to increase the disconnect by prioritizing polarizing and ‹engaging› content. These social bubbles are formed and maintained by self confirmation creating an expanse between them and others. This can have a massive effect on our social and political lives and contributes to an increasing amount of crises around the world.

We experience a perpetual cycle of emotions which leads us through the formation or birth of an subject/object and into the creation of networks or societies. However, virtual non direct interaction/communiction does not form stable relationships or communities - it creates unstable systems, without attachment. As a society we struggle to stay compassionate and tolerant towards others. Loneliness increases and we feel banished from our community and experience a lack of direct social interaction. As a result we feel physically and mentally neglected and detached as well as increasingly less human, while embedded into an increasingly less physical world.

A performance by the artists Arno Deutschbauer and Micha Elias Pichlkastner, presented in Timișoara with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum. 

The performance is part of the "Anotimpurile FEST-FDR" Festival program of the Timișoara National Theatre and is organized with the support of Marginal Association.