The simulation of Talking Straight Science Center culminated with “Talking Straight: Life”, a four-hour immersive performance in the form of an obstacle course staged at various locations of the Maxim Gorki and Studio R. Life took place over three sold-out performances in June of 2018.

An open house at the Science Center was simulated, with philosophical lectures and scientific panels in the Studio R. Relatively quickly, the event revealed itself to be a kind of “game of life” in which the audience experienced problems of fate and privilege. Not everyone was given access to every room, quantum theory was deployed to question the reliability of the audience’s perceptions, and virtual reality used to disorient their senses. The characters that had been narrated through the time of the entire residency were brought to the limits of anthropocentric supremacy, and themes of death and decay began to dominate, leaving in their wake posthuman fantasies of Bacterial and Mushroom as the real actors.