Pedro Gramegna Ardiles

What do Astronauts do?

Performance by Complejo Conejo | PQ Performance 2023

A crew of five astronauts is walking through an unknown city. They explore, collect and communicate; they want to make contact.

Starting from the concept of the Other and using the imaginary of science fiction, the Complejo Conejo collective presents itself as a group of explorers from another world, strangers in this unknown city, trying to solve only one question: What is a human being?

The astronauts embody otherness; they are a faceless force decontextualised from its reality, they are tourists recently arrived in a city far from home, they are conquerors seeking new lands, they are outsiders absorbing a foreign culture.

Their costumes are instruments of travel, equipped with all the necessary tools to explore, collect and communicate the samples of humanity they will discover.

During their journey, an urban route that includes public transport, the astronauts will create various forms of communication with passers-by; gestures, signs, maps and sounds will help them in their mission and allow them to interact with this unknown species called humanity.

Together with the astronauts, the passers-by and the people who follow the crew will live the experience of the other, becoming participants in the exploration, reflecting themselves in the smallest samples of human behaviour that can be found in any city; eating an ice cream, taking the tram, sitting down to read a book or getting lost in the street.

This is a rare experience that offers the possibility of experiencing human behaviour from a different perspective, creating a communion between the performers, the passers-by and the public space.

The crew’s mission will be completed when they arrive at their destination, where each astronaut will present their collected experiences and finally make contact.

What do astronauts do? is the latest performance by Complejo Conejo, a Chilean collective specialising in performances in public spaces. The astronauts are looking for us… the astronauts want to make contact!