Ein Stück vom Glück
«Denn alle rennen nach dem Glück, das Glück rennt hinterher»
B. Brecht
How much property does one need to be happy? Can one actually be happy – or just lucky? Why is happiness so important?
The young company HotAirProduction chose the farce Hans in Luck as the narrative framework for «Ein Stück vom Glück». After his job is done, Hans receives his pay and is dismissed. But the gold nugget he got is too heavy, so he exchanges it for a horse that unsaddles him, so he exchanges it for a cow that won’t give him any milk. He continues to exchange his goods until he is left with nothing. Now, without the burdening property he finally finds happiness.
While in the fairy tale the protagonist Hans is simply this lucky fellow, «Ein Stück vom Glück» does not leave anything to chance. Here, a professor and his assistant Hans are constructing a machine of luck in order to find the formula for the production of unalloyed happiness. A fairy tale for grown-ups.
HotAirProduction are known for their entertaining way of combining science and fiction. They conduct interviews with happiness scholars, they question Zurich’s inhabitants about the topic and they use philosophical texts reaching from Epicure to Byung-Chul Han.
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