Meiro Koizumi

Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and brought it to humans. As punishment, he was forced to suffer eternal torment. This legend about the tense relationship between humanity and technology forms the starting point for Meiro Koizumi’s Prometheus VR trilogy, which is presented in Europe for the first time at Theater der Welt 2023. In Part One, ‘Prometheus Bound’, Koizumi combines virtual and augmented reality, through which the audience, moving freely within the space, is immersed in virtual environments, sensations and emotions. In a radical moment of alienation, between utopia or dystopia, a near future is revealed in which advanced technologies enable human consciousness to live forever. This work won the Grand Prize in the 24th Japan Media Art Festival (Art Division) in 2021. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus stole fire (technology) from Zeus and gave it to humans, and for this, he got crucified on a mountaintop, and had to endure eternal pain as a punishment. Since the beginning of our civilization, technology has been the source of prosperity and development. But also it has been the cause of great tragedies such as wars and nuclear accidents. Setting the Aeschylus Greek tragedy “Prometheus Bound” as a starting point, Koizumi created VR (Virtual Reality) theatre which deals with this age-old tension between humanity and technology, through collaboration with a person who is desperately longing for the technological advancement - a person who is suffering from ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis- the deadly neurological disease that make a person paralyzed). Through the dialogues with the man about his personal life and his visions of the future, they created a sci-fi vision in which past and future, self and others, humans and machines are all merged into one sequence of abstract VR theatrical experience.