fight club @ donaufestival

realtekken ! the people from god´s entertainment know how to cross the borders between reality and game. it really made me happy to see this manic performance, especially because the music-program this evening was kind of chippy. the performance took place in a backdoor-room of the stadtsaal and there were only limited tickets. while people were gathering inside you could feel the atmosphere of somethings going to happen and you already could smell perspiration and violence. it was mesmerising to feel the tuning of the common mood when the first fighters were beating each other. i am not fascinated in fights and even don’t play computer-games, but you couldn’t escape this ecstatic atmosphere. i was even playing in the final round. ok, i (we) lost, but it was a crazy feeling to move a real body by pushing buttons.

it works like this – there are 2 players with controllers & 2 real fighters connected through light-signals on the floor. the player pushes the controller and the fighter sees the light-signal and moves the corresponding limb. very interesting was that two players declared a strike and didn’t want to push the buttons. “ok, if we don’t play – u don’t have to fight” – a pretty ineffective effort of political correctness, because they were immediately mocked. but actually a wise statement ;-)

the rules were clear and everyone intended to play – even the fighters, so no one was forced. but the fighters definitely felt the pain of the hits caused by the players.

real pain !! not just subtracted points !!!

one difference to computer-games was also that the fighters were the real heroes and not the players, and of course they really deserved it !!