«Big Brother» was the first reality show to be aired simultaneously on television and the internet. The container was a democratic utopia, dystopia and work of popular Conceptual Art rolled into one: an auto-surveillance system, a permanently auto-updating ready-made, a paradoxical authenticity machine. To mark the twentieth anniversary of the first season of Big Brother, the Basel-based artist and theatre director Boris Nikitin has created an almost exact replica of the original container. The container is empty, its inhabitants having long since left. As a historical artefact, it stands there deserted, like a lonely relic.


The container was a democratic utopia, dystopia and work of popular Conceptual Art rolled into one: an auto-surveillance system, a permanently auto-updating ready-made, a paradoxical authenticity machine. The fourth wall separating the private from the public had finally been breached. Henceforth, we would all be performers.


To mark the twentieth anniversary of the first season of Big Brother, the Basel-based artist and theatre director Boris Nikitin had a replica of the original container made. The dimensions have been tweaked, one room is missing, and the container is made not of metal but of wood painted white. The result is an imitation of a structure that was itself a simulacrum – a simulacrum that ushered in the age of digital visibility.

Parts of the container were originally used in the production «Erste Staffel. 20 Jahre Grosser Bruder» by Boris Nikitin at the Nuremberg State Theatre.