Drinking Brecht: an Automated Laboratory Performance

IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction

The title of this interactive installation of course refers to the famous Marxist playwright, whose dream was to create a “scientific” theater that would demonstrate for his audience the evils of capitalism, and incite them to revolution.

In Drinking Brecht: an automated laboratory performance, Sister Sylvester explores the politics and potential of this scientific theater in relation to contemporary microbiology, through a hat stolen from the costume collection of Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. Sylvester traces the possible wearers of the hat using forensic and archival methods, and the audience learns about the first-ever biohacker experiment, creating a documentary in a drink.

Sister Sylvester uses new technologies to make visual essays and installations. IDFA previously featured her performance The Eagle and the Tortoise, which used live music and film to explore the history of the bird’s-eye view, and Our Ark (co-director Deniz Tortum), a short film about attempts to create 3D archives of creatures and other things lost to the climate crisis.