DER COMPUTER NUMMER 3 – 2019

Analogue / Digital

A multimedia performance about dating apps.

Swiping, matching, dating: dating apps have become a part of everyday life in people’s search for love, sex & fun. With Tinder, Grindr, Bumble & Co., the next flirt is just a swipe on the mobile phone display away. Especially during the pandemic, online dating was booming, because accidental encounters in the supermarket had become more impossible than ever before because of masks and distance. But what does the algorithm really know about me? Do our encounters and relationships change due to the digital getting-to-know games? Is it even possible to find true love with the help of the app? DER COMPUTER NUMMER 3 explores how relationships are established through digital matchmaking and how the algorithmic get-to-know-you games of dating apps affect the contemporary construction of identities.

The yearning of France Gall’s 1968 song about the eponymous computer has given way to the algorithmised reality of virtual get-to-know-you games that affect the construction of hybrid identities between the analogue and the digital. The performance collective notsopretty playfully appropriates different strategies of online dating and puts a humorous mashup of personal anecdotes and critical analysis on stage with DER COMPUTER NUMMER 3.e.

A lot has happened since the premiere in September 2019. As early as April 2020, in the face of the Corona Pandemic, notsopretty developed a digital version of their first work. The audience could watch the performers live and intervene via Skype Call. In autumn 2020, performances on stage were held again under special pandemic measures. Finally, the three performers of notsopretty had the chance to intensively revise COMPUTER NUMMER 3 at the beginning of 2022 and to incorporate new experiences. With this new version, they made their way to the cities of Oldenburg, Lingen and Hanover.

Funded by

The restaging has been funded by the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR.