A radio interview / radiofeature on the philosophical theme "How real is reality" about Radical Constructivism and the project RealTheater by Julia Schütz (Weimar) with Hans Mack alias Neo of Terra:

Julia Schütz:
The model of the Real Theater is based on the philosophy of radical constructivism, according to which we do not simply find the world but invent our worlds. Paul Watzlawick, a philosopher and psychotherapist, characterizes a corresponding intellectual attitude in three respects: on the one hand, the freedom to recreate his reality again and again; secondly, to act responsibly, since the reference to the constraints or the guilt of other people is no longer open; Tolerance, to allow all others to freely construct their reality. Can it be assumed that the participants in their newly elected role act freer, more responsible or more tolerant than before?

Neo vonTerra:
Yes, much more free, much more tolerant and much more responsible.
More tolerant and free - because one can live out its shadows, inner impulses and desires, independently of usual social taboos.
On the RealTheater stage, artistic freedom prevails. The social group accepts here a behavior that would lead in the normal life to the use of police and forcedjacke or to serious struggles and real hate. We just grin at it and amuse ourselves about the variety and variety of the possibilities of our species.
It is more responsible, therefore, because we as an artistic ensemble take care of us all together. The most important stage rule, in addition to the stop rule, in order to be able to play with each other is that no one can happen to anything bad, because then the game would be over and no one could want that.
When acting, the intuitive is on our side, it is easy to observe this rule.

Julia Schütz:
One of the prerequisites for a positive result of the experiment is that best-case scenarios are created in the game. Conflicts should remain in the sphere of playful, as they become impersonal by the distance between 'real' person and role. Is this a step towards peace or one in the direction of escapism?

Neo vonTerra:
The distance to one's own causal, historical and social person frees the possibilities of action and deepen the connection to the inner child and his own wishes and impulses. Therefore, I would not call it impersonal, but on the contrary very personal. The barriers, taboos and mechanistic rules of our "metropolis world" are thereby eliminated.

When we develop best-case scenarios that have never before existed and thus create practical know-how, this is an important step towards peace. The methods of the theater and the simulation fit perfectly. This also goes in the direction of love research and the direction of "structural peace", as peace researcher Johan Galtung and Dieter Senghaas called it.

Escapism, means escape from reality. I understand Radical Constructivism so that there is no clear reality and no firm truth, especially in social terms: my role, my status, but also my possessions, etc. It is communication, it is a game that we take seriously. This is like with paper money, as long as it is as if it is valuable, as long as it is genuine and valuable.

Our collective action determines what is true and what is real. If a group of people take the theater play and the world that is created by RealTheater together more seriously than the so-called real world, then this world becomes real. There are thousands of reasons not to take our current world seriously, with all the absurdity, the nuclear weapons, the political clowns on the lines of lobbyists and environmental destruction.

Peace research in conjunction with art and philosophy means to design concrete and practical alternatives, and I see RealTeater with the group work and the idea of a peace village or a future experimental peace city as a social seed, a foundation if it works.

One can call it escape from reality, but it is also the development of reality, the opposite of escape. It is about the fact that there is not one reality, there are several and that is good.
The monopoly, as our TV News, for example, spreads, is a fake, a chimera, a partial truth, sold as a whole truth. I am waiting here for the global laughter to wake up from the egocentric money time and finally to start playing on our blue spaceship Terra.

Life was supposed to be a game for all, or as Helmut Kohl once called the mocking: a collective leisure park. That's exactly what I want.
The robot arm will be ready in about 10 years to provide us with the peace of my species. Keywords: Industry 4.0, unconditional basic income, global marshallplan, eco-age, paradigm shift.

I think the art, the theater, the long-term improvisation in the sense of RealTheater is the better and more liveable world and should replace as a life model our present so-called normal social system and the egocentric life model. I even go so far as to say that it is better to live a life where one does not have to act as a single role, but can be as freely recognized as socially recognized, such as (the german actors) Hape Kerkeling or Anke Engelke in their TV roles with tens of completely different characters.

We are all that. The philosopher Richard David Precht wrote a book titled "Who am I, and if so how many?", And I am struck by a saying of the rock band "Talking Heads": "We dont wan't just one cake, We want the whole fucking bakery ". We do not want to be a single Marionette, we want the whole theater!

Julia Schütz:
The explanatory text for the RealTheater project is entitled 'Just for the Crazy'. Do you consider it possible that long-term participation in the experiment favors or even provokes the development of a schizophrenic character? What do you think this would be?

Neo von Terra:
The term "only for madmen" as a bay title is intended to make curious and also refers to a passage to the Magic Theater from the book "The Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse.
Whoever reads my book, recognizes that it is exactly the opposite. Our world today is probably the crazy world, by financial crisis, dictatorships, dogmas, lies, the 3rd world war - the poor against the rich etc.

In the normal world, the development of schizophrenia becomes ever more intense. We are in many points, as in the fairy tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes." Everyone sees that politics does not solve the main problems, but we continue to do so. Everyone wants love in personal life, at the same time we often treat our neighbors as cool or anxious as if they were Godzilla. Who really says the truth, in the job, in a talkshow or in the shopping street, needs a fast horse.

By suppressing the true inner perception, we are promoting Janus pots and mental illnesses, such as people with Tourette's syndrome, who simply can not endure the mechanisms of communication suppression.
This our normal world promotes schizophrenia. At the RealTheater, however, we can finally authentically express what is in us. We can think aloud, that promotes unity in man and is an extremely liberating and humorous act, as usual in drama lessons.

Julia Schütz:
The constructivist philosopher Ernst von Glasersfeld has put forward the thesis that the 'real' world is revealed only where our constructions fail. In the RealTheater it is assumed that this also applies to our identities. But are we no longer than we can choose or understand and thus change?

Neo von Terra:
When our constructions collapse, we suddenly see that it was just a construction and that much more glimmers behind it. When a tower collapses that we have held for the whole world, we suddenly see that the tower is not the world but the field is the world. Thousand colorful Lego building blocks as far as we can see and we can build new worlds and characters.

It is about recognizing that we are not the objects and game figures we create, but that we are the directors, hands, and eyes that choose that, but ultimately we are both players and observers. But only when hands and eyes allied, we can organize a common game and stop the "monkey violence" on Terra. I mean this quite seriously as a acting teacher, philosopher and peace activist.

Julia Schütz:
So far, psychological experiments such as The Third Wave or the Stanford Prison Experiment have revealed a power and greed seemingly anchored in human subconsciousness. What social structures are likely to develop when everyone can choose their role freely? Can this result in violent violations and loss of control?

Neo von Terra:
These projects have shown that a simulation can be real if it is coherent and runs longer. Both were worst-case simulations. I think it is very likely that a best-case as well as "what if" would result in best-case as well. Above all, we have here a completely different structure of a project. We have security measures that have proved successful in tens of thousands of drama classes for many decades. Man is neither bad, nor good, he is both a true Januskopf. If you treat someone like Romeo and Juliet, you get the spirit of Romeo and Juliet and love scenarios. If you play the servant / master or the Sado / Maso game, with prisoners and guards, then you get violence and Sado / Maso.

The violations and loss of control can be said to include the rules of drama lessons. Violence can occur, but violence remains in emotional experience and does not become really destructive. The 10 cm distance rule for beating impulses, when actors strike, incidentally corresponds to the muscle stiffness of the dreaming during the REM dream.
There is nothing in the world that I know of where a loss of control is as improbable as in drama lessons in the joint improvisational exercises, because precisely because everything can be experienced expressionistically, what is there, there is no tension accumulating in the normal Living in the sense: "The barrel runs over" leads to violence explosion, crime and war.

Julia Schütz:
How is the basic care of the participants ensured and to what extent do they have to provide themselves in a need-oriented manner?

Neo von Terra:
In a really well organized RealTheater, which could take up to 4 months in the longest form, and would lead to a sustainable community in the best possible way, the supply must be assured, as with a workshop or a film set. It is like in nature, you can only play when you are funded.

Julia Schütz:
Where and how can you apply as a sponsor and / or participant of the project?

Neo von Terra:
Via e-mail: (x-art@web.de) or via www.realtheater.de.