Holzinger’s chaotic musical brings Frankenstein’s climate crisis to Melbourne

Florentina Holzinger’s musical A Year Without Summer is currently staging at the Arts Centre Melbourne as the headliner for the Rising festival. The production follows the Austrian artist’s transition from art-world recognition to global internet fame, a shift largely driven by her Venice Biennale exhibit Seaworld Venice. That earlier work featured naked women suspended in filtered urine and a room of human excrement, setting a precedent for the explicit and visceral nature of her current Melbourne offering.

The performance draws thematic inspiration from the historical events of 1816, known as the year without summer, following the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The volcanic ash caused global cooling, crop failures, and famine in the northern hemisphere. During this period, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Geneva, a cautionary tale about medical science untempered by humanity. Holzinger’s show positions itself at the intersection of this literary legacy, contemporary climate crisis, and the messy complexity of human existence.

The production features a massive all-female, all-nude cast drawn from diverse backgrounds including theatre, dance, circus, body modification, sex work, and pornography. The narrative is anchored by a performer-narrator who recounts the historical context, before the show descends into a series of vignettes that blend sung musical numbers, dance sequences, and live endurance art. The content includes simulated sex, real blood, fake vomit, and fake excrement, alongside body modification stunts such as a performer inserting hooks into another’s face.

Characters representing historical scientific figures appear throughout the chaotic structure. A performer portraying Sigmund Freud lectures on female genitalia while engaging in drug use and a pelvic exam. Others embody Josef Mengele and Georges Cuvier, referencing controversial and unethical scientific practices such as eugenics and the dissection of the Hottentot Venus. These scenes are juxtaposed with moments of tenderness and absurdity, including an inflatable muff, robot dogs, and Holzinger herself birthing a figurine from a gash in her thigh.

The Rising festival, which previously hosted Holzinger’s 2023 headliner Tanz, presents the show as a celebration of life in all its abject and sublime forms. The production invites audiences to reflect on dystopian visions of scientific progress, including biohacking and AI-driven robotics, while questioning who the real monsters are. The festival runs until 31 May.