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about

a high contrast black and white image of a white man (philipp ehmann) in his 30s next to a window looking at the floor
(self-portrait)

TLDR: I make playful experiences to explore topics and places.

Philipp studied theatre at the University of Exeter, where he received an M.A. and a B.A. Hons with distinction in theatre. Since 2008 he works as a theatre maker and transdisciplinary multimedia artist with playful methods. His work has been curated internationally. He currently lives in Vienna.

His episodic, interactive theatre piece Mum’s The Word was commissioned by the Exeter Fringe Festival. It included pervasive social media elements such as Facebook, e-mails and text messages, as well as the episodic narrative structure we know from TV shows. His most successful work, the street game Weeping Angels, was curated at the Playpublik in Berlin, Playful Arts Festival in Den Bosch, w00t in Copenhagen, Tocatì in Verona, and others. He is co-founder of Play:Vienna, Austria’s first initiative for playful art in public spaces and was on the executive board of Games Austria until 2015. Ehmann is also one of three founding members of City Games Vienna and mostly responsible for game and narrative design there. 

His production of Peter Turrini’s Rozznjogd at the Volkstheater Wien in 2014/15 was hugely successful over both runs at the Volkstheater & Werk X. 

Projects include two Snapchat Escape Rooms for Red Bull, Press Staat For Revolution and Libertalia 2.0 – two immersive shows about democracy for the Schauspielhaus Graz, Hotel Europe – a set of hotel room installations for the Green Rooms Hotel London, Sie & Wir by Isley Lynn for Werk X theatre, Götter der Dämmerung – a Neue Musik Game Theater for Alte Ope Frankfurt,  a dance installation for Ars Electronica Festival, and others. 

He helps others make work as a playful dramaturg, play consultant or director, for example:
Time’s Up, DARUM, Victoria Halper, Kai Krösche, Temporäre Schule zur Entwicklung schöner Gesten im Flieger, etc.

Ehmann is a lecturer for InterMedia at FH Vorarlberg. He has given talks and workshops at international institutions such as the F.R.O.G. Conference, University of Exeter, Austrian Cultural Forum London, Assitej, die Angewandte, internationale Theaterinstitut, ADK Regensburg, and others.

He received the Content Award 2020 for „Monster Hunt“ together with City Games Vienna. In 2017, he got the Dorothea Neff Preis together with his team for Wien 5 Kunst der Nachbarschaft and the 2016 Dr. Rudolf Kirchschläger Preis for his multicultural theatre tour „Jalla Jalla, Geh Ma!“

Currently he is making a mobile game that let’s you hunt monsters in the city and writing a crime thriller game about cows for the BOKU University in Vienna. Furthermore he supporting Time’s Up in their latest endeavours and writing an interactive theatre play on participation and society.

And he is habitually bad at updating his CV.

For a full & updated CV please get in touch.

You can also find me on Mastodon