From the series Theatre as Radio for ORF / Ö1 Kunstradio
Awarded Ö1 Audio Play of the Year (Audience Award)

To manufacture computer chips, environments with the lowest possible level of air contamination are required, so-called clean rooms. The factory work is monotonous, socially isolating, and follows a strict production protocol. The chips produced in these facilities end up, among other things, in smartphones — the very gadgets responsible for digitalization and which supposedly replaced the Fordist system of labour.

In its place, however, a new imperative of self-realization has emerged, through which we learn to present ourselves perfectly. The consequence: we study the best poses and repeat them constantly in everyday life. Our own performance once again becomes a form of assembly-line labour.

The performance "How to Protect Your Internal Ecosystem" was staged at WERK X Petersplatz in Vienna. “To what extent is a withdrawal from all of this a possible and necessary strategy worth protecting? How to protect your internal ecosystem?” ask director and media artist Miriam Schmidtke and her co-author Mimu Merz in the radio version developed for ORF / Ö1 Kunstradio.