Battles
BATTLE REPORT
6. Critical Cake - November 2025
Piece: Hungry Eyes Festival Kurzfilmprogramm
Cake: 1) POV (point of view) 2), pacing (dt. Tempo/Dynamik) 3) killing darlings
What a fight! One cake stood firm, was divided into pieces and got devoured by many in this special edition for the Hungry Eyes film festival in Giessen!
Thirteen short films challenged our deliciousness and battled hard in a tight race. They outshined the cake by far in the categories "dramaturgy", "cut" and "consistency" and even tied with the cake in "craftsmanship". The cake on the other hand was able to stay strong in the categories "Special effects, "Accessibility" and was able to defend "arc of suspense" with a small lead. In the end - after the dust settled - the cake prevailed!
5. Critical Cake - October 2025
Piece: Nora Schön und Marie Simons DOOMSDAYDUDES
Cake: Polykrise, Doomies, solidarisches Prepping
We are back from hiatus and had our first battle this Saturday! DOOMSDAYDUDES by Nora Schön and Marie Simons, a piece on prepping culture, was more than ready for the challenge!
We presented a cracked hazelnut tarte with walnut praliné, spruce-infuced almond cream, orange blossom cream and topped with smoked almond brittle. We paid homage to the stage design with its square shape. The cake was then decorated collectively with forest berries and little zombie brains. As a last nod to dudes-culture, we set the cake on fire with dark brown rum.
In the discussion we talked about the information value of performing arts, the use of fun-ness and drag and prepping as coping strategies.
The voting battle was tough, the piece was able to score high in the category 'craftsmanship', tied to the cake in 'presentation', but lost to the cake in the end. (We should note some very generous points from the artistic team in the process)
Bingo Wins: vegan protein bar, lock pick, props bracelet
Cake prompts: Polykrise, Doomies, solidarisches Prepping
4. Critical Cake - Summer Edition - August 2025
Piece: Chiara Marcassa and Olga Hohmann STRESSED DESSERTS
Cake: Printer, Rage, Deformation
What a lovely Critical Cake summer edition! This time the book "Stressed Desserts" by Chiara Marcassa and Olga Hohmann jumped into the ring against our cake. The authors gave us the following prompts for the cake: Printer, Rage, Deformation.
We presented a coconut cake with ginger soak, pineapple-whiskey filling and a cardamom caramel layer. The cake was decorated with, vanilla buttercream, maraschino cherries, ginger yufka sheets and a fist punch.
We had a lively discussion on motives of labour, present in both parts of the book, the object itself and its design, as well as specific scenes of both texts that felt frighteningly familiar with personal working experiences. We talked as well about the differences in perspective and style between the two parts and the joy of material world building.
The voting battle was very close. The book was able to lead in consistency, it tied with the cake in accessibility, but lost in the end to the cake, which had the biggest lead in presentation and audience experience.
Bingo wins: Printed spam mails, Valerian Drops and Sticky Notes.
Critical Cake will be on hiatus until October, but we are always open for suggestions for coming editions!
3. Critical Cake - June 2025
Piece: Jacob Bussmann SWEETBITTER SONGS
Cake: Aale, polymorph und diese verwirrende Formel: ½+½=1+x ( x ist größer oder kleiner 0)
THE PIECE WON FOR THE FIRST TIME! And rightfully so! Congrats go out to the amazing team of Sweetbitter Songs!
We had a lively and quite hot discussion of use of space, genre, dimension, lights, manner of speech and much more.
The piece was able to take the lead by points especially in the categories of Dramaturgy, Audience Experience and Arc of Suspense, while the cake took home the win in Accessibility (a first in this category!).
Looking at the popular vote, we actually had a tie - we always knew we loved statistics!
But well, the popular vote doesn't count and we're happy to have lost to such a beautiful piece.
The bingo wins were an exclusive audio recording of a text that didn't make it into the piece (Freud-related), a rose (arose/is a rose) and a glass of water.
2. Critical Cake - Mai 2025
Piece: Swoosh Lieu ENTER GHOST
Cake: Glocken, Séance, Rainbow
The second round of the epic Battle of pieces and cakes took place yesterday on the occasion of Swoosh Lieu's Video-Audio Walk at Frankfurter Hauptfriedhof.
Inspired by the tastes and smells surrounding cemeteries, we presented a black cube of coffee-cardamom cake with rose buttercream, raspberry and caramel filling. The cake was decorated on the spot with a rainbow-coconut pendulum, aiming for both monumentalism and queer whimsy.
We enjoyed a lively discussion about the piece: On the importance of artistic approaches insisting on the visibility of queer history and voices, on the accessibility of the format, on tech claims, on the effects of the video layer during a Walk, and on further opinions, thoughts and personal preferences.
Voting-Battle:
The Piece was able to strike the cake in the categories "accessibility" and "consistency", while the cake was able to score high on "presentation" and "arc of suspense". In the end the cake took home the crown.
BINGO Wins: one white Lily, a yellow rose and a candle.
1. Critical Cake - April 2025
Piece: Gob Squad News from Beyond
Cake: Fog, Ghost, Message
We presented an Earl Gray Cake, with Vanilla Rosemary Buttercream, Lime Curd and Lavender Cream Cheese Frosting. Decorated with a Shugar-Glass Divination Sphere and two Rosemary Springs that were put ablaze. The table decoration was completed with rice-paper Ghosts.
The battle between Cake and Piece was a close one. The piece was able to outmatch the cake in the category "Zugänglichkeit/Accessability", but still lost to the cake in the end. The cake had the biggest lead in terms of consistency, followed by arc of suspense.
We have to note that our voting system was criticized for not taking the different production lengths of cakes and pieces into account, but we will not be deterred in future cake - piece battles!
The three Bingo wins - props from the piece gifted to us by GobSquad - were graciously received by eager contestants and we had a wonderful critique talk about the piece, with very diverse experiences and thoughts.
As one would think with "News from Beyond" discussing the different experiences from the first and second show was very interesting.
