Hungry Sharks

Is the world nothing more than a simulation run by a supercomputer? Are we all just characters in a giant computer game? These questions form the basis of the so-called simulation hypothesis. An intellectual game that is also reflected in the phenomenon known as NPCing: NPCs – “non-player characters” – are characters in computer games that cannot be played but remain part of the background.  They always perform the same actions, movements and dialogues in pre-set loops. These are marginal figures with whom an increasing number of people have identified in recent years, imitating their speech and movements on TikTok and elsewhere – as a joke, but also as a way of expressing their sense of lacking agency. The urban dance company from Vienna Hungry Sharks that thrilled the Festspielhaus back in 2018 with #fomo takes this trend as its starting point and in Destination FCKD it provides peripheral characters, NPCs and extras with voices of their own. With the aid of “travelling movement patterns”, they devise loops of movement sequences that expand within the space as they are repeated, prompting solos and group choreographies and ultimately reaching a spectacular finale in the triumphant parade of the supposedly insignificant.