Performance: Does the world need another gas field? Berger & Wirz

To register your attendance, please send an email with your full name to berger_and_wirz [at] outlook [dot] com (berger_and_wirz[at]outlook[dot]com)

A partial reconstruction of the fossil fuel company Shell’s Annual General Meeting, presented as a series of events taking place at IAC and in front of the Mazettihouse. Using installation, theater, and custom computer software, the work unfolds and recontextualizes the company’s discourse, aesthetics, and safety measures.

But it all started about 300 million years ago.
At that time, plankton, horsetails, scallops, and other organisms lived – and died. Over time – millions of years – the molecules in their dead bodies were transformed into what we today call crude oil, bitumen, and fossil gas. Much later the compressed bodies of our ancient relatives were extracted from their million-year-old graves, sold, burned, and rose to the sky as gas.

Among the kingdoms of men, an unequal battle began for the shared atmosphere. How much of these gases should corporations, states, and individuals be allowed to send off?

A Deutch court ruled that the fossil fuel company Shell must reduce its emissions by 45%.
Two years later, the verdict was overturned.

Shell’s previously dull annual meetings turn into intense spectacles, complete with airport-like security procedures. The corporation tries to maintain a respectable façade, even as activists in disguise chant and are carried away by hired guards.

Meanwhile, Shell is rebranding. Words like clean, low-carbon, and transition are used more frequently. But capital expenditures still go towards fossil fuels.
Now, using artificial intelligence, the corporations’ search for new graves to extract, refine, and sell continues.

Does the world need another gas field? is an adaptation of the artist duo Berger and Wirz’s durational performance Filibuster, originally presented at Glasgow Sculpture Studios in 2024, and a condensation of their experiences intervening at Shell’s Annual General Meeting the same year.  This work continues their enquiry into the language and structures of Shell.

The duo has been working together since 2018, most notably on the performance-walk PLUG‐FAIR / through a glass darkly, which received the ‘Most Innovative’ award at the Stockholm Fringe Festival in 2020.

CONCEPT
Josh Wirz
Axel Berger

PERFORMERS
Adam Skovdal
Azamat Salakhov
Viola Faye
Cecilie Kappel
Max Lewander
Chris Staudinger
Josh Wirz
Axel Berger

Visit Axel Berger's artist page - axelberger.net

Visit Josh Wirz' artist page - joshwirz.com