Workshop & Interactive installation

"Gute Frage!" ("Good question!") was a kids' workshop that Kati Hyyppä and I conducted as part of Junge Theaterwerkstatt am Zoo in Frankfurt during their summer program. Over the course of one week, we worked with Lera, Oskar, Anonymous, Adriano, Gabel, and Rafael (some participants decided to give themselves artist names) to create an interactive installation spanning three floors of the Zoogesellschaftshaus.

We brainstormed over two hundred questions—some straightforward, others quite deep, a few funny and absurd, and, naturally, a handful of silly ones. Our collection was diverse.

Examples included: "Did you sleep well?" "Why are you here?" "Who are you?" "What happens after death?" "Are you a potato?" "Car or cheese?" "What is your favorite animal?" "Is your name Herbert?" "Are you sure?" and "Really?"

Using colorful adhesive foil, we turned these questions into eye-catching DIY signs. We hung them in the building's helical staircase, effectively transforming it into a forest of inquiries.

After making about eighty signs, we still had many questions left. With an online speech synthesizer, we converted the remaining questions into audio files. In the theater's prop store, we found old telephones, which we modified with Arduinos and MP3 player modules. These phones would now play a random question whenever someone picks up the handset.

You can listen to those random questions, too, by clicking here.

Thanks

A big thank you to Ossian Hain for inviting us, to Luise Sonntag and the entire Theaterwerkstatt team for the splendid organization, and to all the participating kids for their ideas and positive energy. Special thanks also to Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm for carrying out the Theaterwerkstatt am Zoo!

Additional resources

• All project photos (diary album)
• DFPlayer / MP3 Player Arduino Code
• All telephone questions as separate mp3 files in a zip
• Selected telephone questions with beep as one mp3 file
• Video walkthrough