Eine Minute der Menschheit

The text is a book about a book that attempts to record what happens in the world in one minute—what humanity experiences, does to each other, and destroys in sixty seconds.

Statistics on death, reproduction, overpopulation, and resource scarcity are discussed, as are the art produced per minute, church taxes paid, and animals consumed by humans. The outcome of this insane attempt to establish an "extreme summary of humanity" and, in the process, to get to the bottom of humanity itself turns out to be rather disastrous.

This thought experiment is complicated by the very nature of time itself, for at the moment of its portrait, time continues to pass, and the statistics just collected already lose their relevance.

But where are the limits of the statistical method? Which areas of human life, feelings, and actions escape the law of large numbers? And how can all of this actually be endured?

Stanisław Lem is considered one of the most important science fiction authors of the 20th century. In his extensive and creatively exuberant oeuvre, he predicted numerous technological developments of the future – from robotics to the internet to space travel. Novels such as Solaris and The Futurological Congress have become classics of fantasy literature.



Anita Vulesica, who is well known at the Deutsches Theater as a specialist in absurd and tragicomic theater through her productions of The Darling, The Salary Raise, and The Bald Singer, is now discovering a previously less-explored text by Lem for the stage for the first time.