7 Configurations (2014-2019) is a cycle of three performances and two installations by artist, performer, maker and theorist Marco Donnarumma. The cycle is a substantial milestone in the artist’s research on the hybridization of human and machine bodies through sound, movement and AI prostheses, an investigation he has been pursuing since 2010. Conceived, created and performed by Donnarumma with the support of scientific and artistic collaborators, the cycle focuses on the integration of new technologies in human bodies and lives, as well as its implications. At its core lies the question: How to understand the effects of AI and robotics on interpersonal and institutional power?
Through combined research on movement, dramaturgy, sound and technological engineering, each of the works in the cycle combines human bodies, robotic hardware, machine learning software and microorganisms into a particular ‘configuration’. This is a hybrid form of embodiment, where each element affect the other to the point that the borders between them become confused.
The cycle begins with the formation of hybrid bodies without predefined identities, the amorphous configurations of Corpus Nil and Amygdala. The focus then shifts to the coalescence of multiple identities into one body, with the monstrous and graceful configurations of Eingeweide. Taking a wider view, Alia Zu tai concentrates on the relations among mongrel bodies and their struggle to co-exist. Finally, Calyx exhibits bodies that have become relics, ruins of those configurations, remains of what once was or could have been.
Each episode of the cycle creates tensely intimate and physical experiences for both audiences and performers through a symbiotic relation between movement and sound. By expanding Donnarumma’s previous work on biophysical music, the pieces in the cycle couple interactive music created in real time with amplified sounds from the performers’ muscles with choreographic methods inspired by ideas of coercion, use and abuse.
7 Configurations was born from the cross-pollination of disciplines, a deeply transdisciplinary approach at the core of Donnarumma’s work. This combines his various expertise, enmeshing elements of hybrid art, body art, sound art and dance theater with AI, neurorobotics, computational creativity and biological sciences. The result is a multi-layered art form focused on performativity of machines, of bodies, of gender, of non-human agents. Today’s ethico-political polarisation and systemic discrimination are, more than ever, reinforced by new technologies. This demands from artists to reflect deeply on their use of technology. The 7 Configurations is a statement on the effects of new technologies on body politics as much as on their transformative potential. Through artistic research, new technologies can help reframe the notion of “human” as a vulnerable, open and leaky creature that is dependent on and enriched by both its human and non-human kin.
After shows and exhibitions in 19 countries in the past years since its creation, the 7 Configurations cycle is still on tour today. The cycle has been realised with the support of numerous co-producers and supporting institutions, including Goethe-Institut, Graduiertenschule at the Berlin University of the Arts (DE), Wissenschaft im Dialog (DE), CTM Festival (DE), Chronus Art Center (CN), Retune Festival (DE), Goldsmiths U. of London (UK), Baltan Laboratories (NL) and Resonans Festival (DK).