Season 2023

Beneath our feet lies a mystery. A complex underground network of mycorrhizal fungi keeps our ecosystem alive by exchanging nutrients and carbon with almost all plants on Earth. Remarkably, no one knows exactly how these sophisticated and ancient systems operate, or how they are affected by climate change. The Underground Astronaut follows evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers, named one of the 2022 TIME100 Next Innovators, on her quest to map the world’s fungi networks and understand their behaviour before it’s too late. A fragrant and urgent journey underground. “No fungi, no future.”

How does technology transform humanity? Do we need a body to be human? In his multidisciplinary work, composer and director Michel van der Aa explores the big themes of our digitised age and contemplates existential questions in the border area between humans, machines and consciousness. Van der Aa re-energises the world of opera. Whether his VR goggles are on or off, he is always looking towards the future. In Between Realities shows him working on a new music theatre project, crossing the boundaries between remembering and forgetting, reality and unreality, life and death. Together with actors and avatars he forges new paths into the metaverse.

To map the effects of climate change, mountain hydrologist Walter Immerzeel and his team venture to remote altitudes where other scientists do not go. From his tent base camp in the Himalayas, he collects data on precipitation, temperature, atmospheric pressure, solar irradiance, windspeed and more using over 200 measuring instruments. These data must be extremely accurate in order to reliably predict changes in the region’s water cycle – which is of crucial importance for the millions of people who live in the climate-sensitive areas downstream. In Moving Mountains, filmmaker and mountaineer Renko Douze follows Immerzeel on one of his mountain expeditions.

What is intuition? And how can gut feelings influence science? Known for her extensive research into adolescent brain development, neuroscientist Eveline Crone proposes that intuition is an aspect of the mind worth studying and embracing. In her scientific career, her own gut feelings have often led the way to new insights. In The Guts of the Neuroscientist, Crone takes us on a journey through an abstract landscape of morphing white lines as she contemplates the development and the future of neuroscience.

In an ongoing series of theatre productions, Nicole Beutler explores how humans are inflicting irreversible damage on planet earth. What does our future look like? Her plays envision the necessary transformation of the position of humans on earth: the end of the Anthropocene takes centre stage. She describes this process as “going into the dark with your eyes wide open”. Beutler combines a strong artistic vision with room for joint decision-making. By inviting her team to bring their own visions to the table, she creates a collective work of art while challenging traditional conceptions of leadership. In the film, we see Nicole Beutler working on GINKGO or: 56 million years ago there were palm trees on the North Pole. A confrontational dance opera about the end of the world as we know it, and the first performance of her RITUALS OF TRANSFORMATION trilogy.

Neuroscientist Jeroen Geurts has dedicated his career to finding the cause of multiple sclerosis, a brain disease affecting millions. He hopes to find a cure within ten years. Unsure of what exactly he is looking for, his mission feels like wandering through a dark forest. Following his intuition, he searches in places others have neglected. Geurts says he is trying to find something which “language cannot yet grasp”, and emphasises the role of metaphors in this scientific field riddled with mysteries.

Although she didn’t personally experience the last Argentinian military junta (1976-1983), Argentinian-Dutch visual artist Aimée Zito Lema grew up in the shadow of the violent history that affected her country and family. At a young age, she grew fascinated with archival photographs of people who dared to risk their lives by resisting Jorge Videla’s military regime. On a visit to Buenos Aires, she includes her daughter in a performative art piece in which they embody the past and imagine a new future, showing the way art can function as a medium for memory work across countries and generations.