Julia Tcharfas

Science of Rehearsal (2018) Julia Tcharfas and Tim Ivison, Swiss Institute, New York, NY.

Science of Rehearsal exhibition staged by Tcharfas and Ivison assembles materials from the archives of the Theater of All Possibilities and the Institute of Ecotechnics, drawing connections between their practices through careful juxtaposition of photographs, documents, and objects. 

Members of the Theater of All Possibilities and the Institute of Ecotechnics are perhaps best known for their various roles in the first two missions carried out in Biosphere 2 (1991-94), the largest and most complex closed-system ecological facility ever built. Originally designed to model the adaptive performance of living systems, the structure contained seven interconnected ecological biomes supported by a vast technical apparatus. In the first mission, eight crewmembers lived for two years within the enclosure, growing, harvesting and cooking their own food, and thereby testing the scientific and sociological possibilities for human life inside biospheres on other planets or in alternative atmospheric conditions.  

Although the Theater and the Institute have addressed distinct artistic and academic communities through their institutional projects, Science of Rehearsal underlines the common framework of performance, rehearsal, training, experiment and improvisation inherent to both. Bringing together zines, photographs, biospherian suits and data reports, fantastical theater costumes and handwritten notes, Ivison and Tcharfas animate the links between art, literature, performance and community in the development of a technoculture able to confront contemporary ecological conditions.

Science of Rehearsal, 2018: Exhibition script (PDF)