Metatron’s Workshop (2012)

The Bible is lying. God threw in the towel a long time ago.

Summer 2012 at the erstwhile Tempelhof Airport. People are sitting in the sun. Barbecuing, romping around, laughing. Between picnic blankets and playing children, a house with cute curtains blends into the summer idyll. In the house’s carefully mowed garden is an abandoned tower. A mug of still-warm coffee sits atop a shelf amidst some odd-looking tools. Pieces of paper with jumbled notes look as if someone has just finished writing them. Looking down on the scene from above, you can sense the trouble in the air. The idyllic world is a backdrop. You can only see the system errors from a bird’s-eye view.

The Bible is lying. God threw in the towel a long time ago. But people don’t know that. On their bikes, wearing their summer hats, they have no idea it’s doomsday. So much the better, at least according to Metatron. He, the voice of God, has renounced his rightful duty to the Lord, refusing to announce His final message.

People are sheep, and now he’s their shepherd. Understanding the world, knowing what really holds it together, would only destroy it. It doesn’t deserve that. Virtual reality, mystic illusions, are its only hope.

At the center of the matrix, in Metatron’s workshop, hidden behind the checkered curtains, the world appears as it truly is. We discover a dark chamber and shaking bars. We hear loud voices, smell misfortune and sulfur. This is where Metatron keeps the system failures and the conspiracy theorists, the infidels, and all those pests who might threaten the integrity of the user interface.

In the border area between kitsch and decay, machina eX has created a fictional universe that’s meant to remain concealed but keeps on revealing itself. The audience breaks in and slides down, into an adventure that’s part doomsday fantasy, part journey of discovery, part amusement park.

Credit: Mathias Prinz