“The Life of Saint Fiona Bianco Xena” tells the hotly disputed story of the fictitious Saint Fiona’s life. Three experts in her sacred story contend for the right to determine her legacy. Who was Fiona? DIY hormone hacker and trans revolutionary? Exemplary orchid specimen collector? Or just another mythological grifter?
At the mercy of the video game systems they have built to drive their performance, the three members of Fantasia Malware debate, dance and rumble, answering trivia and summoning dead spirits in a berserk battle royale*. Saint Fiona Bianco Xena’s story is presented in an unholy panorama – both sacred and absurd.
Originally commissioned in 2021 by London’s National Gallery X and the Royal Opera’s Audience Lab as a web-based game, “The Life of Saint Fiona Bianco Xena” is a dazzling collage that plays with religious symbolism and fantasy aesthetics. In 2024, Fantasia Malware will perform a video game performance of the original for the first time at HAU2.
This evening marks the start of the “Fever Loop Fountain” series, which will continue at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in September and October. In this context, Fantasia Malware will present two further new video game performances.
“The Life of Saint Fiona Bianco Xena” will be presented in co-production with the A MAZE Festival. The 13th festival edition for “Games and Playful Media” will take place between 8-11 May 2024 at Silent Green. A MAZE Festival is the most important festival for arthouse games in the country and has a large international reach and community.
* Battle Royale is a computer game genre in which the player fights online with a predetermined number of other players in a delimited playing area, which becomes smaller and smaller as the game progresses, using items collected in the playing area. The aim is to be the only player or team to survive at the end.
