Flat Sun is an extended cinematic experience, a concert and a performance.
In Flat Sun, Verdensteatret draws inspiration from the cyclical nature of energy and waste in humans and other organisms. From ancient worship and offerings of shiny and golden objects, to today's obsession with the extraction and production of value and waste. Flat Sun invites the audience to examine what is an object and what is reprehensible, what is useful and what is empty, what is music and what is noise, what is light and what is dark.
On the night before the big operation, let your movements be guided by the sun. Study the relationship between light and life. Note that the plants absorb the deep red, but reflect the infrared. When the agave plant is fully grown, it sends out a giant trunk the size of a telegraph pole. This signals that the plant is dying. Do not touch it with anything but your eyes, but leave it as it is until the next day, the day of the operation. Cut it when the sun begins to rise in the firmament. You take the pole to a metalworker, who must forge the steel so sharp that it can cut a victim's throat. Attach the steel as covers to the ends of the post. You then obtain a magnetic stone, which you heat up to magnetize the two steel points. Notice that the surroundings have started behaving strangely. The sun is a yellow metal disc. Hanging in the room like a brass-shining light. A slowly rotating gold coin. The invisible light is filtered into the visible. The solid ground becomes like the sea. If you have done everything correctly, your body will be unstable, silent film-like. Let the flat sun fall on you.
Verdensteatret consists of video and sound artists, painters and poets, sculptors and computer programmers who together have developed an intricate audiovisual style. Their poetics is characterized by a dedicated long-term development, creating scenes of sensuous activity and an ongoing experimentation within different media which result in space related orchestral works. Their large scale productions are built from raw material collected during journeys combined with stories of the fragile human soul. The works of Verdensteatret have been presented internationally in a number of art contexts and locations, such as art museums, contemporary music festivals, and theaters. Verdensteatret is an Oslo-based art collective founded in 1986 by Lisbeth J. Bodd and Asle Nilsen.
