in German

What disappears when no one is looking? With ‘HTTP 451’, the Graz-based collective ‘Das Planetenparty Prinzip’ has created a dystopian game format about the slow disappearance of the free internet. As an interactive text adventure, the performance guides the audience through a network that is increasingly forgotten, restricted and manipulated. Content can no longer be found, is legally blocked, deleted or locked away – error codes such as 404, 410 or 451 become the dramatic engine of a collective experience. 

The audience becomes part of a rescue mission involving the entire audience: whatever still exists must be secured, copied and archived before the last entry disappears. But it quickly becomes clear that this is about more than just data backup. ‘HTTP 451’ asks an uncomfortable question: what is actually worth preserving? Everything? Only certain content? The idea of a free network? The truth – or even its distortions and lies? 

Playful, humorous and at the same time highly political, the work allows us to experience how memory, knowledge and the public sphere are negotiated when digital spaces become fragile. ‘HTTP 451’ is an interactive experiment about responsibility in the digital space – and about the need to take action before disappearance becomes the norm. 

Concept & Realisation Das Planetenparty Prinzip (Leonie Bramberger, Moritz Ostanek)