In one skylight hall, the electromechanical figure theater machinery The Telling Orchestra (Fortellerorkesteret) (2004-06) was shown.

"The Telling Orchestra (Fortellerorkesteret) is a room-installation. An electro-mechanical construction that function as an audio-visual ”animation-machine”. By use of different motors and robotics the ”primitive” wooden construction has become automatic and is programmed and run by computers. All the moving figures/objects, the sounds, all the visual parts, (video, light, mirroring images, etc) are run by computers. The installation can be viewed as a machine, as one complex instrument, or as a whole orchestra with many voices and tunes, many shapes and many stories.

The Telling Orchestra has gone through a constant development for almost three years and has become a very advanced and complex construction. The original concept and choice of material came first from our journey on Greenland in 2003 and partly from a sequence in the performance Concert for Greenland. It has now become a true telling orchestra that we can play almost anything on. It can produce music like an orchestra, it can produce complex visual sequences, mechanical ballets, shadowplay, twisted mirror projections, pure abstractions, literary stories, psychological relations between bonefragments, religious visions from the roadside, shipwrecks and machine romance…and so on forever.It is also a sculpture, -and a machine with the ability to change the room it is placed in, in a split second."

In the second hall, the completely new installation work louder (2007) was presented, which has also been performed as a live production. The work was based on a travel the group made to Vietnam and the Mekong River.

“..louder is a massive orchestral piece. A tidal wave of pictures and sounds is thrown at us by a machine so fragile that it is in constant danger of short-circuiting. Among a pile of megaphones that hurl sound in all directions, and a knot of wires so stretched that they may break at any moment, we glimpse people. People who are trying to interact with this landscape, tugging at strings that are everywhere in the room. The strings hanging from the ceiling form a stage for a mass of figures. A mechanical puppet play takes place here – over the heads of the performers. louder is a storytelling orchestra that hangs by a rusty wire and narrates a multitude of tales through sound and images. Tales from a distant past, tales from our time, about wars, river, the theatre, the nation, music, nature, technology, the journey and about exile. In the midst of this throng, we find a heart of darkness – a long, black barge on the open sea, radiating coldness and stories..»

- The descriptions above have been taken from the website of Verdensteatret.
Visit their website here.

Verdensteatret was founded by Lisbeth J. Bodd and Asle Nilsen in 1986. Verdensteatret is recognized as one of the leading Norwegian artist collectives and is praised for its surprising use of new and old technologies in the development of contemporary theatre, music and visual arts. Verdensteatret's unique experimental expression has for several decades garnered attention and won awards both ain Norway and abroad. Verdensteatret's works have been shown internationally in many different contexts, including galleries, music festivals and theatres. A nomadic impulse is deeply present in all the activities of Verdensteatret. The performances are built on materials and fragments collected through travels and encounters with foreign landscapes and cultures. In combination with many other layers and references, these journeys are incorporated into a larger context.