DOOM

If the doomer, doomscrolling their apps for hours, imagines doom as the end times that are already vaguely here while everything goes to hell, Layton Lachman’s and Samuel Hertz’s DOOM does something like the opposite: doom, here, is transposed to being a place, too – an environment not only for cynically panicking about what’s next but also for sticking to a wide range of messy feelings attached to loss and grief. DOOM leaves space for not just the work, but also specifically the footwork of mourning to pop up, which at times might look like a teetering dance and heavy breath from under a lace mask. At other times, it might be dull, repetitive, endlessly riding a bicycle in the figure of infinity. DOOM is a foggy place where performers are given space to do their thing as they move through loss, clutch their pearls, and shred on their guitars – anchoring everything in a sense of doom not as something judgmental and distant, but as something that could be or has to be lived through. And living through it also means figuring out how to be somewhere in-between being alone and being together, personal and political.

DOOM nudges mourning onto the stage of loudness and glitter, gently peeling off its shock value. Any attempt to grasp the extent of feelings of the end times as personally lived, “climate grief” if you will, is dependent on the work of mourning for Black and Indigenous worlds that have already ended, are still constantly ending. As Kathryn Yussof writes, “imperialism and ongoing settler colonialisms have been ending worlds for as long as they have been in existence.” Without spelling this out – it’s unspeakable – in DOOM, it is the affective premise; for most people, the end times have long arrived. Hanging out and even potentially having a great time here entails an obligation to not leave the aesthetics of the end of the world to lukewarm apocalypticism.

Samuel Hertz and Layton Lachman are artistic collaborators who have worked together for 10+ years across performance and sound, creating hybrid works spanning diverse media such as durational installations, generative and short films, song cycles, staged works, and writing. Having met and collaborated first in San Francisco, they relocated their practice to Berlin where they have been living and working for the last seven years.

Samuel Hertz is a composer and PhD researcher in Geography at the Centre for GeoHumanities focusing on the uses of sound in climate science, and is the author of more than 10 essays on climate-listening practices. His multimedia work—including subwoofer performances, IMAX installations, Earth-Moon-Earth radio transmissions and composed music for chamber ensembles—deals with encouraging a complex, sensual approach to more-than-human scales of space and time.

Layton Lachman is an artist based in Berlin. They create performances rooted in somatics, channeling these experiential practices into immersive, sensorially complex worlds. Layton’s curatorial practice in Berlin, San Francisco, and NYC intersects with their artistic practice, in their facilitation of self-organized events, interdisciplinary exchange, forms of collective authorship, and the challenge of ingrained power structures. They create with the understanding that we are always collaborating with and through the transmissions of those who come before, after, and with us.

DOOM lasts approximately 75 minutes without intermission and is without speech. At times the performers play very loud drone metal music, and often the sound is loud. Hearing protection is provided at the entrance. In some moments the stage and audience area are in complete darkness. There are bright, flickering light effects as well as strobe and heavy fog.

Here is an essay by Maxi Wallenhorst about the piece "DOOM", and the great thing is that Layton Lachman und Samuel Hertz have compiled a soundtrack for the piece.

By and with: Layton Lachman, Samuel Hertz, emeka ene & Caroline Neill Alexander

Concept: Layton Lachman & Samuel Hertz  
Choreography: Layton Lachman 
Original composition: Samuel Hertz
Costumes: Ivanka Tramp
Light design: Dani Paiva de Miranda
Dramaturgy support: Maxi Wallenhorst
Production: Florian Greß

DOOM exists in the afterglow of the amazing work and legacy of Kathleen Hermesdorf (1967-2020) & Mariana Nobre Vieira (1989-2020).