The performance 1984 – Back to no Future by Gob Squad was a part of the TRAVERS program. This is a pool of the questions they could use during the performance. Questions that perhaps can help us Confront the Future.

‘What if’-questions by Gob Squad

What if we would stop, stare up to the stars (which we can’t control, which we can’t touch) and imagine a world in which things are better?

Let me check in with you: where are you right now – past present or future?

In 1984 what actions would you take if you were able to imagine a way out?

….

Keep going – train your imagination like a muscle

What if you hadn’t given up on the future but dared to imagine it?

Try to imagine: what if things actually turned out okay?

Lets meet in a future we can call home.

 

 

POOL OF WHAT IF QUESTIONS

 

What if my mum remains divorced and we could live in a patchwork family?

 

What if I would try to understand my mother?

 

What if I’d learn to speak another language fluently?

 

What if a serious attempt could made to eliminate Aids in its early stages?

 

What if the East led the West?

 

What if we stopped punishing the poor?

 

What if we could control the weather?

 

What if progress was measured in bio diversity?

 

What if black and white unite and fight?

 

What if there was no longer a center but only a periphery?

 

What if we woke up in someone elses life everyday?

 

What if we could choose who we were?

 

What if we could think of a different type of desire unsatisfied by neo liberlaism?

 

What if we could live our lives like in the movies, but not a movie where we are the main part and everyone else is there to make us look powerful and glamorous, but a movie where we are small cogs in a mysterious story?

 

What if the machines we design to organise and run the world turn out to be morally superior to humans?

 

What if the main building material on this planet was not concrete, but fungus?

 

What if I could convince my parents to leave the village and move to a different place?

 

What if I could be someone else somewhere else, like „Big in Japan“ for example?

 

What if I could trust my body more than my mind?

 

What if I could leave things behind and dive into the unknown?

 

What if I dared to ask questions without knowing the answers?

 

What if me, 15 year old Berit could decide to not go to school on Fridays and go on strike instead to change the world?

 

What if I could really change perspective and see the world through someone else’s eyes?

 

What if history could be told by the losers, not the winners? – or only in the form of dream diaries?

 

What if we could truly communicate with an octopus or a jellyfish and invent a new language together?

What if we could leave the centre and fade into the background and be actually really happy with that?

 

What if we could unlearn everything that we’ve learned?

 

What if a story is not a story until it changes?

 

What if we could start all over again?

 

What if a school subject would be „happiness“?

 

What if I wasn’t German?

 

What if I would dare to be close to someone?

 

What if we measured the economy other than in growth?

 

What if instead of traffic there was birdsong?

 

What if we started asking better questions?

 

What if our end is something else’s beginning?

 

What if we don’t need a body any more?

 

What if we follow and react to whatever comes our way?

 

What if we become dust?

 

What if we like being dust?

 

What if we could be intimate with the invisible?

 

 

 

SOME OTHER QUESTIONS FROM THE PERFORMANCE

 

Should girls just want to have fun?

Is there anything to learn from this?

 

Who is your enemy? Who’s side are you on?

 

What are we fighting for? Is it good against bad? Is it women against men? Is it magic against mind? Is it body against matter?

 

Who’s telling this story? Is it told by lots of money changing hand?

I am a part of the story but does that effect anything?

Why is ambivalence not a super power?

 

 

Focus on the future: What do we want to protect? What do we need to let go of?

We all had a future…How did we survive?

How to protect and survive?

Are you colonizing the past or is the past colonizing you?

Can we change?

Are you ready to let go?

Can we try something new?

Do you know how hard it is to do that?

Can we leave the patten, the structure?

 

 

Where are we now?

Is this the beginning?

Or is this the end?

Is this where the past, the future and the present are all falling into one?

Is this the place where (space)time folds in on itself?