Keywords: tanztheater, body art, sound art, artificial intelligence, bioart

Eingeweide

World Premiere: 4-5 October 2018, Romaeuropa Festival, Rome

What does it mean to create a truly autonomous machine, independent from human control? And what happens when organs live outside of a body? Perhaps the human body’s only real power is to take on ever changing forms and identities.

Eingeweide is the staging of a ritual of coalescence. Inhabiting a desolated, surreal landscape, two human bodies become violently entangled with an artificially intelligent (AI) prosthesis, out-of-body organs, relics from computer server farms and animal remains.

The prosthesis uses AI algorithms to learn in real time how to move, exist and perform on stage. The organs pulsate, leak and crawl on the floor, bearing traces of the microbial cultures which created them. Sounds from the performers’ muscular activity are amplified and transformed by AI algorithms into a powerful and visceral auditive experience, submerging the spectators.

The performers’ bodies become, thus, one and multiple, at times asserting, at times misplaced. They are the means of a drastic form of bodily experimentation, where alternate identities emerge from the convergence of human, machine and micro-organisms. In such a configuration, each element drastically affect the other. Physicality and psyche are meshed up, shaken and probed.

A far scream from trans-humanist ideals or techno-phobic claims, Eingeweide creates its own vocabulary of symbolic meaning, manifesting the relationship between humans, technology and living-others as a harsh, poetic and humbling form of intimacy.

Eingeweide is part of the 7 Configurations cycle (2014-2019), a series on the conflicts surrounding the human body in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).

Reviews

“So beautiful and deeply disturbing, a true manifest for the adventures of creation and a massive stimulation for our curiosity as we should always remember, there are no borders, neither for our body nor for our mind.”
Thomas Venker, Kaput Mag

“Two naked bodies, sound cuffs on the thighs. They are knotted together, is it copulation or a single being? A tentacle grows out, it’s surreal, one’s own senses are meaningless. Fantastic, a spectacle.”
Christian Pichler, Volksblatt

“An all-encompassing enveloping experience, powerful, visceral and therefore, also disquieting.”
Francesca Bernabini, Danzaeefebi

Award

2018, Romaeuropa Festival (IT)
Digital Award (Best performance in category)

 

Shows

  • Politik der Algoritmen
    Muenchner Kammerspiele, Munich, DE, 2019
  • Arte Anarchia
    MACRO Asilo, Rome, IT, 2019
  • Meta Marathon
    NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf, DE, 2019
  • Frankenstein Symposium
    Natlab, Eindhoven, NL, 2018
  • World Premiere, Romaeuropa Festival
    Pelanda Theater, Rome, IT, 2018
  • Excerpt, Ars Electronica
    Postcity, Linz, AT, 2018
  • Public preview, CTM Festival “Turmoil”
    HAU2, Berlin, DE, 2018

Format

Evening-length piece for two performers, machine and biomaterials.
Duration: 40 minutes
Media: Artificially intelligent facial prosthesis, adaptive neural networks, biosensors, biomaterials, LED light, computer-processed sound, multi-channel sound diffusion, black paint

 

Credits

Donnarumma, Pevere – Artistic direction, performance, staging
Marco Donnarumma – Music, programming, AI robotics
Margherita Pevere – Wearable biofilm, robot skin
Neurorobotics Research Laboratory, Beuth Hochschule – Scientific partner
Ana Rajcevic – Robotics visual design and costume
Christian Schmidts – Robotics 3D modelling and engineering
Andrea Familari – Light design, stage production
Claudia Dorfmueller – Production
Manuel Vason – Photography
De Angelis, Spera, Trimboli – Live photography
Protopixel – Light technology

A production by Marco Donnarumma in collaboration with Margherita Pevere. Commissioned by CTM Festival (DE) and realised in the context of the Graduiertenschule, Berlin University of the Arts.