[After her Destruction] is a long-term research-driven multimedia opera project, that was conceived by Krauss and produced in collaboration with a team of 20 artists and performers, from 2022-2025. The project is structured through several evolving iterations that continuously trouble and over-write one another. These iterations include 8 video chapters, 20 compositions, theatrical productions, writings, live performances and multi-channel installations.
Mode of Storytelling
[After her Destruction] begins with Girl, an autofictional character. Introduced as the protagonist and structuring agent for the project’s questions, the narrative and character system initially unfolds around Girl and is viewed through her perspective. In the process of storytelling, Girl’s position becomes increasingly decentralized, and a network of agents emerges whose positions and perspectives inform each other and jointly produce the narrative. The characters are created and developed in collaboration with the performers. Depending on the form of presentation (video, performance, installation), the narrative appears in different constellations, montages, temporal contexts, and with varying content focus.
The initial scenario takes place in 2013 and is not depicted cinematically. Girl is alone in her childhood apartment on the 7th floor of a high-rise building on the outskirts of a German city. Her mother MOW, short for Manic Old Woman, with whom she usally lives there, has been in a psychiatric ward for two weeks. Girl is 19 years old and writes letters to MOW. Due to her vivid imagination, neighbors in the building have long suspected that something is wrong with Girl, like with her mother, and that her mind may be mutating. To find out for herself if there is any truth to this claim, she searches for a way to travel through her own mind and finds the computer program The Art of Mind on the internet.
The computer program is based on neurofeedback technology and uses the method of lucid dreaming to put users into a special state of consciousness. When someone connects to the program, it generates a so-called APPARATUS, a walk-in 3D interface between the program and the mind of the respective users. From there, the program transports them to different dream spaces and hallucinatory states that are triggered associatively by the user’s thoughts and feelings.
Girl’s experience with the computer program is staged in eight video chapters. In them, Girl encounters various characters such as the Mysterious Lady Without Name, the lady’s lover, the Fortune Teller who travels through time, the Superego, a Mutant, her mother MOW, and the [Choir of Mutants].
A play with perception becomes an essential part of the narrative. A tapestry of metaphors and symbols unfurls in fragmentary dialogues revolving around the concepts of normality and mutation, beauty and desire. The characters demonstrate different ways of dealing with the experience of not conforming to social norms and not wanting to fulfil them. The tension between external judgement and the way someone sees themselves becomes a negotiating ground for autonomy and freedom. “Do you even know the story about Girl, Girl?”, asks the Fortune Teller, indicating that narratives are constructed and thus changeable: “Mutare; it means to change. You know, some people are afraid of change.”
With each dream, the programme and Girl’s mind seem to become more and more intertwined, until it is almost impossible to recognise who is actually navigating the journey. Girl’s attempt to gain an understanding of the alleged mutation of her mind, transpires as a quest for possibilities of identification in a patriarchal capitalist society, in which violence is produced through classism, racism and misogyny.
Cast & Team
Girl – Lila-Zoé Krauß
The Mysterious Lady Without Name –
Linda Elsner
Lover – Sibylle Peters
MOW – Christin Krauß
Fortune Teller – Elliot Reed
Snake
Mutant – Lex Schnäbele Calimero
Superego – Ophelia Young
[Choir of Mutants]
Haiqing Wang
Rebecca de Toro
Anto López Espinosa
Luïza Luz
Don Jegosah
Suma Abdelsamie
Team
- Production, Directing, Concept, Script, Music, Sound Design, Costume, Editing, Art Direction: Lila-Zoé Krauß
- DOP, Co-Director: Helena Wittmann
- Set Creation: Ricarda Johanna Schwarz
- Light Operator: Julian Gillman, Suzanne Caroline de Carrasco, Lars Rubarth
- Sound Recordist: Nikoloz Mamatsashvili
- Hair & Make-Up: Maike Albeck
- VFX & Color Grading: Jacopo Fant
- Sound Mixing & Mastering: Helge Hasselberg
- Vinylmaster: Martin Sukale, Ramona Records
- Set Assistants: Laura Haas, Marc Einsiedel, Mattheo Lange, Ben Lauffer
- Production Assistant: Suzanne Caroline de Carrasco
Produced in cooperation with Hanseplatte, Misitunes and Kampnagel
Funded by Initiative Musik, Rockcity Hamburg, Herrmann Krämer, Hamburgische Kulturförderung, Projektförderung Bmkoes, BKM
Installations
2024 – [After her Destruction] – solo show – Kunsthaus Hamburg
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2024
Camera: Helena Wittmann
3-channel video and 20 sound installation, 58′, Color
Dimensions variable
May 25th till July 28th 2024
At Kunsthaus Hamburg, the audiovisual music and opera project [After her Destruction] celebrated its premiere in the form of an exhibition, representing the artists first institutional solo show. The work, which comprises 8 chapters, is based on her research into memory and sound alongside an intensive reflection of her personal biography. Krauß has transformed the comprehensive project into a theatrical installation specifically for the Kunsthaus venue. Here, for the duration of nine weeks, the audience was guided through a 58-minute production. Its light, sound and image were dramaturgically orchestrated to turn the space into an immersive stage. On the musical level, electro-acoustic sounds and expressive vocals combine to create dense avant-pop compositions.
Curated by Anna Nowak
(text from press release)
Photo Credit (all images): Lila-Zoé Krauß, [After her Destruction], 2023, Installation view, Antje Sauer
2024 – if you follow the river long enough – Dietikon Project Space – Zurich
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2024
Camera: Helena Wittmann
3-channel video and 4.1 sound installation, 58′, Color
Dimensions variable
Exhibition: 15.11.-15.12.24
Dietikon Projektraum, Im Haus Regina, Zentralstrasse 12, 8953 Dietikon
(curator’s text)
In if you follow the river long enough we suggest to subvert the conventional narrative of the mermaid: condemned seductive and by that dangerous, mutilated for scientific endeavors, called deceptive as their appearance is not one, labeled antonym to purity and virtue, objectified and sexualized in advertisements. Following this figure gives a chance to look behind the shining curtain of power thirsting to master and possess, revealing the actors of stories and histories that shape the narrative of control over bodies, in an all-encompassing sense of the word.
Featuring the work of Seba Calfuqueo, Magali Dougoud, Lila-Zoé Krauß, Sohorab Rabbey, Karrabing Film Collective, the exhibition includes screenings, archival materials, and overviews of cultural references.
Curated by Angela Fusco, Mira Tyrina and Olga Popova.
Mentored by Kim Anni Bassen, Paloma Ayala, Anselm Franke.
2025 – not yet yours to imagine – duo show – DAS WEISSE HAUS – Vienna
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], chapter: Dream I: [Matrix], 2024
Camera: Helena Wittmann
Multimedia installation:
2-channel video, 2.1 sound, 11′, Color,
‘Dream I: [Matrix]’ tryptich on canvas, ‘Matrix Memory Collection’ Jukebox
Dimensions variable
Exhibition duration: 08.05. – 28.06.2025
‘not yet yours to imagine’ was a duo show at DAS WEISSE HAUS presenting the works Buoyant Force by Henna-Riikka Halonen and Dream I: [Matrix] by Lila-Zoé Krauß
In Dream I: [Matrix], visitors step into a fragmented reality, drifting between presence and illusion. A two-channel video montage is at the center of the installation, dissolving the boundary between screen and space. A newly produced triptych and an enigmatic sound box offer new entries into the story. The scene is part of the multimedia opera [After Her Destruction], in which the protagonist Girl uses a computer program to travel through her mind. In the fleeting encounter with two strangers, a conversation unfolds in a salon-like setting, reminiscent of a chamber play.
For more information follow this link
Photo Credit: 1) Xenia Snapiro, 2) Lila-Zoé Krauß
2025 – Shifting – group show – JSF – Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2024
Camera: Helena Wittmann
2-channel video installation, 58′, color, stereo sound
[After her Destruction] Prolog, 2025
single channel video, 03’30, color, stereo sound,
Dimensions variable
SHIFTING
DÜSSELDORFER SCHAUSPIELHAUS 24 APRIL 2025 – 30 APRIL 2025
The Julia Stoschek Foundation presents nine international media artists in the foyer of the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. Curated by Lou von der Heyde, Shifting brings together works by Eli Coplan, Courtesy, Tarren Johnson & Joel Cocks, Klein, Lila-Zoé Krauß, Christelle Oyiri, PRICE, Emma Rosenzweig, and Wael Shawky. The works incorporate theatrical and operatic elements and enter into a dialogue with the architecture of the Schauspielhaus.
The exhibited works engage with themes such as identity, memory, technology, and cultural heritage. Many of the artists reference elements of theater and music, thus creating a content-based connection to the exhibition venue itself. Wael Shawky, for instance, uses puppetry and music in his films to shed new light on historical narratives. Klein combines experimental soundscapes with cinematic imagery, while Lila-Zoé Krauß explores the interplay of voice, body, and technology in her multimedia practice. Emma Rosenzweig’s works move between autobiographical moments and staged fiction.
Curated by Lou van der Heyde
Live Performances
2023 – [After her Destruction] – Popkultur Festival – Berlin
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2023
Multimedia live performance
Duration: 40 min
4.1 sound system
3 performers
2-video channel installation
Dimensions variable
On September 1st 2023 [After her Destruction] was presented for the first time as a live performance in a pre-show at Popkultur Festival Berlin, with Lexi Calimero Schnäbele and Benson A‘kuiye. The 40-minute show was performed three times in total.
(Photo Credits: Julia Boxxler)
2023 – [After her Destruction] – Forum Stadtpark – Graz
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2023
Multimedia live performance
Duration: 50 min
4.1 sound system
single channel video
solo show
Dimensions variable
On September 8th 2023 [After her Destruction] was performed as an audiovisual solo performance at Forum Stadtpark, Graz.
2023 – [After her Destruction] – Desertshore Festival – Volkstheater Vienna
Lila-Zoé Krauß
[After her Destruction], 2023
Multimedia live performance
Duration: 40 min
2.1 sound system
single channel video
solo show
Dimensions variable
On December 9th 2023 [After her Destruction] was performed as an audiovisual solo performance at Volkstheater Wien, two times 40 minutes each.
2024 – [After her Destruction] – Kampnagel Hamburg
2024 – Apparatus III: [Superego] – Secession – Vienna
2024 – [After her Destruction] – Finissage – Kunsthaus Hamburg
Articles
Publications
Apparatus III: [Superego] at Secession
Apparatus III: [Superego] is a chapter of [After her Destruction]. On July 9th it was performed by Ophelia Young and Lila-Zoé Krauß at Tuesday@Secessions.
Social norms are negotiated between external attribution and self-description. In this ‘apparatus’, identifications are created that (sometimes) forcibly inscribe themselves into the body and the psyche. Procedures such as reintegration into the work system after a psychiatric stay, an application for asylum or the gender entry on the birth certificate illustrate that norms are not given, but are permanently produced. The body is not only a political archive of memory, but also the vehicle for the performance of autonomy and subjugation. Through choreographic arrangements and improvisations, Ophelia Young and Lila-Zoé Krauß enter into a dialoge of movement and sound. Repetitions, disjunctions, synchronizations – understood as the practice of remembering (always differently) – are the landscape in which they search for temporary, autonomous zones.
Kampnagel Performance
On May 25th, Don Jegosah, Anto López Espinosa and Lila-Zoé Krauß presented a performance collage at Kampnagel Hamburg.
Framed by the opera’s music, the three artists enter into a performative conversation between poetry, sound, language, drag and voice to open up a space in which emotions, memories, vulnerability and queer love find expression.
Finissage Performance at Kunsthaus Hamburg
“Sometimes, when I dream, the dream seems to be real. My imagination—I can’t stop it!“ (Excerpt from Lila-Zoé Krauß, [After her Destruction], 2024)
On 27th July 2024, five figures whom Girl encounters on her journey appear in the middle of the exhibition hall: the Lady’s Lover (Sibylle Peters), the Superego (Ophelia Young), two members of the Choir of Mutants (Rebecca de Toro, Don Jegosah) and Girl herself. Through choreographic formations and improvisation, a fragmentary conversation is created between words, movement, song and sound.
Photo Credit: Lila-Zoé Krauß,[After her Destruction], 2023, Installation view, Antje Sauer
2LP
The music of [After her Destruction] opera was released via Misitunes on 16th February 2024. The double album comprises 22 compositions and a booklet. It is a limited edition of 300 copies.
Written, recorded, produced and performed by L Twills;
Mixed and mastered by Helge Hasselberg
Vinylmastering by Martin Sukale
Cover Art by Louisa Boeszoermeny
Cover Art Inside (filmstill) by Helena Wittmann
Cover Design by Studio Hanli
Supported by Initiative gGmbH with project funds from the Federel Government Commissioner for Culture and Media In cooperation with Hanseplatte
Booklet
Video
The [After her Destruction] trailer was released on 5th February 2024. The videos of the opera were produced from 2022-2023.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juUvxLMLi2M&t=1s
Dream I: [Matrix] is the first dream of Girl’s journey. In the scene she encounters The Mysterious Lady without Name (Linda Elsner) and the Lady’s Lover (Sibylle Peters), in a salon-like setting with a 1960’s juke box. Lover reads in a book titled Matrix: Mutations of the 21st Century. The more the three strangers speak to each other, the less clear it seem’s, who is appearing in who’s dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juUvxLMLi2M&t=1s
In Apparatus II: [1994] the Fortune Teller appears in the Apparatus. He travels through time and follows his own mission to recollect the lost pieces of the mysterious knowledge of the serpent. 28 years ago he had met MOW, Girls Mother, who told him about a dream she had of Girl before Girl was born. In that dream a snake was speaking to Girl, but MOW couldn’t understand the exact words. Therefore the Fortune Teller asks Girl to search for the lost piece of memory and hands Girl a vial filled with red sand from her mothers dream.
https://youtu.be/JGwckt3G93M?feature=shared
Dream V: [However, what remains is arranged by the Bombs!] is the last chapter of [After her Destruction]. In the dream Girl wakes up surrounded by red sand. While she hears voices singing from distance, she empties the vial of red sand, which opens a “portal” to a black and white world. At the portal she finds a boat and takes off into the unknown, following the calls of the song. Girl does not yet know, that the singing emits from the [Choir of Mu’tants], who live in a temple, in an unknown place and time, next to the ocean. The [Choir of Mu’tants] worship the Roses of Pireria as a symbol of imagination and mutation. In the space between voice and understanding, they are known as the weavers of memory. They sing about the contradictions between love and war.
https://youtu.be/4Y_SL4Zutec?feature=shared
Team
Cast:
[Choir of Mutants]: Suma Abdelsamie, Anto López Espinosa, Don Jegosah, Luïza Luz, Rebecca de Toro, Haiqing Wang
Girl: Lila-Zoé Krauß
MOW: Christin Krauß
Superego: Ophelia Young
Fortune Teller: Elliot Reed
Mysterious Lady Without Name: Linda Elsner
Lady’s Lover: Sibylle Peters
Mutant: Lexi Callimero Schnäbele
Production, Directing, Concept, Script, Music, Sound Design, Costume, Editing, Art Direction: Lila-Zoé Krauß
DOP, Co-Director: Helena Wittmann
Set Creation: Ricarda Johanna Schwarz
Production Assistant: Suzanne Caroline de Carrasco
Light Operator: Julian Gillman, Suzanne Caroline de Carrasco, Lars Rubarth
Set Assistants: Laura Haas, Marc Einsiedel, Mattheo Lange, Ben Lauffer
Sound Recordist: Nikoloz Mamatsashvili
Hair & Make-Up: Maike Albeck
VFX & Color Grading: Jacopo Fant
Sound Mixing & Mastering: Helge Hasselberg
Vinylmaster: Martin Sukale, Ramona Records
Produced in cooperation with Hanseplatte, Misitunes and Kampnagel
Funded by Initiative Musik, Rockcity Hamburg, Herrmann Krämer, Hamburgische Kulturförderung, Projektförderung Bmkoes, BKM