Every Second of Downtime

Millions of packages are shipped every day. Somewhere in a distribution center, algorithms determine who does what, how fast, and for how long. People are still there, but barely. Audience favorite Ant Hampton transforms that world into an experience you don’t just watch - you step right into.

You’re handed a book. A voice whispers instructions to conjure an image. Together with others, you watch as a group of people walks into a hypermodern distribution center and how the machine takes over from them. Until the systems fail. Cheers erupt. Sabotage, hallucination, imagination: the malfunction unfolds in an explosion of image and sound, evoked by the book you’re holding.

All The Downtime is one of the most urgent works in Ant Hampton’s oeuvre. Sharply socio-political, compellingly topical: about dehumanization, our consumer society, and the question of how much room remains for being human in a world that runs on efficiency.

The book is the stage; you are the cast. In this “Autoteatro” experience, you bring the performance to life yourself. 

British audience favorite Ant Hampton returns to Noorderzon with this preview performance, having previously appeared there in 2021 (Not To Scale) and 2024 (Borderline Visible), among others. Hampton is a British-German theater artist who, since 1999, has been immersing audiences in unprepared, interactive situations - often through books, audio, and automated devices. His “Autoteatro” works travel the world and are available in more than eighty language versions. Together with artist David Bergé, he founded the collective Time Based Editions in 2023.