De Laatste Mens

An immersive mixed-reality audio walk in nature

Armed with nothing more than your phone or tablet, you wander through the park. Plants, animals and machines watch along with you, and begin to speak. Are you a memory from the past, a clone, or the last of your kind?

 The Last Human is a thrilling and sensory experience that carries the audience into a future where humanity has almost disappeared, and where this very disappearance deepens our connection to the world around us. The experience invites you to slow down, to pause, and to listen anew to what is alive.

The audio walk is designed to be experienced alone in a green environment. Using your phone, you hear a layered mix of ambient sounds, music, inner thoughts and the voices of the world around you: the landscape, trees, animals, and sometimes even the technology in your hand. This creates a sensory experience in which technology does not alienate, but instead sharpens your perception.

The dramaturgy is inspired by the Asian narrative structure Kishōtenketsu, in which an unexpected turn shifts the perspective and invites you to look differently: at nature, technology, and our humanity in a world that is constantly changing.

What if you were the last human on Earth?

A survivor, a refugee, the final specimen of your species, responsible for the legacy of humankind, and a living being among all other beings, machines and non-human entities around you. As in The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, you rediscover yourself in a world where all familiar structures have vanished, and where imagination and reality continually merge.

The Last Human is not a dystopian vision, but a playful and reflective search for new possibilities. It invites you to reimagine your relationship to humanity, nature, other life forms and machines — and to envision how humanity might reinvent itself when all familiar systems fall away.

The audio walk is accessible and easy to engage with: all you need is a phone, and the work can be programmed in any park or green space. The result is a poetic, stimulating experience that resonates with urgent discussions about sustainability, technology and the future of being human.