„Into Ur“ is the third chapter of an imaginary computer game in which its protagonist travels between worlds, collecting and combining objects in a ritualistic attempt to unravel the riddle of life.

Gestures of milking, harvesting, consuming, feeding and (re)birth form the work’s central vocabulary. They draw on ritual practices through which different cultures have sought to understand loss, grief, death and renewal. Based on research in her two chosen homes, southern Mozambique and the Bavarian Alpine foothills, Totzauer brings together mythology, oral traditions and contemporary social realities. Her research reaches back to pre-colonial and pre-missionary knowledge, tracing how beliefs and rituals have been shaped by colonialism, socialism and war.

Following the non-linear logic of a looping adventure game, the video unfolds as a multi-perspectival narrative in which humans, animals, objects and natural phenomena become equal protagonists.

The Earth itself emerges as an enigmatic force governing the course of the game, while the boundaries between the secular and the spiritual, the natural and the supernatural, begin to dissolve.

Set in the liminal space between death and rebirth, the game invites viewers to navigate the protagonist’s passage into a new life. Metamorphosis becomes a metaphor for transformation through symbiosis: after ingesting leeches that have fed on her blood, the protagonist gives birth through her mouth. This inversion of familiar biological processes creates an alternative reality, situated somewhere beyond our own
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The video was commissioned for the exhibition „MANA“ at Galerie der Künstler*innen 2021, additionally to the exhibition a 3D world went online. „Into Ur“ moves between analogue and digital worlds, questioning the boundaries of reality, belief and existence.