Prekaria

The video opera PREKARIA by the Zurich-based duo Studio Prekär (Marie-Luise Lange and Jeroen Singer) explores the conflict and the speechlessness that attend the transformation of a social system. Their work is based on 30 interviews, conducted over three years, with former citizens of the German Democratic Republic. The texts are interwoven with improvised operatic singing and a composition incorporating abbreviations from the East German secret police, sung by a local amateur chorus. PREKARIA subverts, in a complex way, language’s claim as the predominant way of recording meaning. Through de-familiarization, the narratives and songs reveal the problematic nature of the transition from the so-called “workers’ and farmer state” to the partially structured unemployment of the German reunification in 1989.