P3M5 – Plurality of Privacy
Boundaries unbound?

With Plurality of Privacy, the Goethe-Institut is launching a transnational discourse about privacy. American and European playwrights address trump and vexation in the virtual world in five-minute videos.

Virtual boundaries do not correspond to the boundaries established at the national level, often not even those set by our personal intuition. So what does privacy mean in the digital age? And how can cultural and national political concepts of data protection be reconciled? Answers to these questions are offered by whistle-blowers, experts, artists and intellectuals in the transatlantic theatre project Plurality of Privacy in Five-Minute Plays – or P3M5 for short.

The project is focussed on artistically implementing the theme of data privacy and plays with the diversity of opinions and concepts of privacy. For P3M5, the Goethe-Institut commissioned 15 European and American theatres to produce five-minute plays.

Five minutes of privacy

In her play privacy, Sarah Gubbins from the Alliance Theater in Atlanta depicts a lesbian couple panning to attend a film premiere. But Paige, one of the two, locks herself in the bathroom. She does not want to make their relationship public. Her partner Dee tries to convince her to come out. Their battle of words highlights potential privacy issues for same-sex couples.
Paco Bezerra received the commission for his play @hotmigrants from SPAIN arts & culture, the cultural office of the Spanish Embassy in Washington. A mother and daughter argue over schoolwork and a popular new Instagram account that shows photos of attractive refugees. Their altercation takes an unexpected turn when mother and daughter admit that they both know more than they let on at the beginning.
You can find all 15 videos here.

Russell Miller, Editor of the book "Privacy and Power: A Transatlantic Dialogue in the Shadow of the NSA-Affair" and Kevin Place, Coordinator of the P3M5 theater project launch the project as part of International Data Privacy Day: