Roland Rauschmeier – Assessment

Roland Rauschmeier’s performance "Assessment" combines historical, sociological, and psychological motifs of terrorist violence and their cognitive perception. The above phenomena were examined in the research process for this performance and presented to advance audiences during studio visits. From the material thus gathered, Rauschmeier has now created a type of “proxy terrorist” whom he will subject to a process of artistically psychological diagnosis – an assessment.

In addition to coordinating blood pressure and body temperature, processing pain stimuli and sensory impressions, a major part of the human brain’s activity involves triggering one’s own actions and pooling the consequences arising from them in a meaningful whole. As far as science knows today, our cognitive performances are practically limitless. The performance "Assessment" combines various aspects of this cognitive process, from recognition to decision and to action. Based on the example of terrorism, it deals with the authenticity of self-awareness whenever rational decisions need to be made or justified. We are always able to reconcile our own interests with the fact that we cannot control everything. Someone’s ideas may be torpedoed by perfidious interference, permanent encroachment, threats, or even destruction, ultimately growing into radical grievances. If, in addition, our own agency is reduced to a single option, this can only mean one outcome: terror.