SPOILED GIRLS WASTED - Official launch 01.16

PLAY DEAD is an opening event at the gallery, featuring a guided screening of an interactive opera alongside a group exhibition. The opera is based on a classical Tibetan text – the Bardo Thödol – and depicts the transitional moments between life and death through the sense of hearing. The experience is delivered via an Xbox controller that passes between participants, while the audience as a whole watches, listens, and takes part.

Alongside the screening, artworks are presented that deepen the theme: pain, transformation, consciousness, and Eastern mysticism. Some of the works come from artists who consistently engage with questions of ending, rupture, and healing. Together, these elements compose an event that is at once a game, an exhibition, and a ritual.

The narrative of PLAY DEAD approaches death not as a taboo, but as an open space for listening, transformation, and healing. It seeks to offer a sensory experience that allows the audience to dwell in subjects that culture usually represses – and to emerge from them renewed.

Dganit Elyakim (b.1977, Tel Aviv) is a composer and interdisciplinary artist. Her work engages with the philosophical, political, and ethical implications of digital technologies. Her works have been presented at events such as the Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), the Israel Festival, and others. She holds a BA in Music and Philosophy from the University of Haifa and an MA from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. She is currently focused on artistic research into interactive operas based on computer game technologies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.