Fast Forward

Stanislaw Lem’s (1921–2006) science-fiction writing belongs to world literature. His books have been translated into 57 languages, sold 45 million copies and adapted into film many times. Lem’s impressive technological understanding is the foundation that runs through all his work, in which his human protagonists usually come to misfortune because of themselves and their incomprehension of an apparently enigmatic environment. GOLEM XIV, published in 1973 and rewritten in 1981, explores work on artificial intelligence and its unruly reaction to its creators: before the supercomputer GOLEM XIV bids farewell to go to the “zone of silence”, it tries to record a history of humanity’s most important mistakes in the form of three lectures for them. Not without humour, Lem takes a look at some of the main false assumptions in the relationship between humans and nature, evolution and progress, the past and the future.

Eight members of the festival team have agreed to each read an extract from Golem’s lectures to humanity in German and English and to provide the festival with an audio file. The readings will be streamed every morning between 10:00 and 11:00 am on the festival website www.fastforw.art and will be available until midnight on the 15th of November 2020 in the audio library.

Excerpts from “Golem XIV” from IMAGINARY MAGNITUDE by Stanislaw Lem, translated by Marc E. Heine. English Translation, Copyright © 1984 by HoughSound Design Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Deutsche Rechte Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin

Part 1
Jaz Woodcock-Stewart is a theatre director from the UK. She studied on the National Theatre Studio Director's Course and at East 15 Acting School, where she co-founded and was co-artistic director of Antler. Antler were associate company at the Bush Theatre 2018-2019. Jaz works between various strands of work; devised performance and directing plays. She is the writer and director of Lands (2017) and Civilisation (2019), and she often works with dance in multi-disciplinary collaborations. Before Covid-19, she was directing a new adaptation of Gulliver's Travels for the Unicorn Theatre and she is currently working with students at Lamda on a production of Fen by Caryl Churchill. Last year she was nominated by the National Theatre in London to make a piece of work for Performance Laboratory Salzburg and Mitos21.

Part 2
David Tushingham translates plays from German into English, ranging from Clemens Setz to Ferdinand von Schirach and from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Rainald Goetz. He has collaborated extensively with the playwrights Dea Loher, Falk Richter and Roland Schimmelpfennig. As a dramaturg he has curated numerous international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, Theater der Welt, the Wiener Festwochen and the Ruhrtriennale.

Part 3
Data Tavadze has directed the Royal District Theatre in Tbilisi where he started his career as a director and playwright. He also co-founded several theatre festivals. In his production WOMEN OF TROY, which premiered at the Performing Arts Biennale in Sweden in 2013, he linked Euripides with interviews of women who survived the war. For this work, he was awarded the highest Georgian theatre prize Duruji and the Young Critics International Award. In addition, he won the prize for best direction at Fast Forward - European Festival for Young Direction in 2016. 2018 he realized TIGER AND LION at Staatstheater Karlsruhe. 2019 he staged Friedrich Schiller KABALE UND LIEBE and Anna Segher‘s TRANSIT at Staatsschauspiel Dresden. At Deutsches Theater Berlin he premiered JEDERMANN (STIRBT) by Ferdinand Schmalz.

Part 4
Louise Ritchie holds a practice-based PhD (supervised by Prof Mike Pearson and Prof Heike Roms) and works as a lecturer in Theatre and Theatre Practice at Abery-stwyth University. As a performance maker her interests centre on human encounter and the moving body in relation to site-specific, participatory and instruction based perfor-mance.  Her expertise in site-specific perfor-mance connects directly to the work of former international theatre company Brith Gof, who pioneered epic site-specific perfor-mance in Britain and Europe in the late 80s and 90s. She is currently colla-borating with Good News From The Future on a project titled Sunday Walk, as well as developing a new enquiry for our current times, titled Duet for Another Time.