Alia: Zu tài
Far from being passive commodities, ‘intelligent’ software, body sensors and robotic devices drastically affect human bodies and lives. Which kinds of relationships do AI and robotics produce? How do those technologies influence the way we understand and discriminate human bodies? Who is ‘normal’ and why?
Alia: Zǔ tài (2018) is a piece combining dance theater and biophysical music with state-of-the-art AI robotics. Three humans and two robotic spines inhabit an aseptic space, whose uncanny whiteness is interrupted by neatly ordered computer screens, cables and circuit boards.
The spines have no bodies; they are displaced prosthesis revealing their uselessness, as well as an unexpected liveness. Each is embedded with a particular neural network and learning algorithms, which let it sense and respond to the touch of its human partner.
As in a lucid dream, a woman nurses one of the spines, a primitive form of sensuality hidden behind an apparently everyday routine. The spine responds to her, caressing her with sinuous movements, wagging its limbs, moving as an eerie, alive piece of metal.
Alia: Zǔ tài (2018)
Alia: Zǔ tài (2018)
Alia: Zǔ tài (2018)
Alia: Zǔ tài (2018)
The sweet quietness is only a prelude. As the other performers – human and robotic – enter the stage, hidden hostilities start to surface. Biosensors on the performers’ bodies amplify their muscular activity into a sound storm, a fleshly sound attack manifesting to the audience the straining tension of their desires.
Already wavering relationships are crashed under a choreography of cruelty. The desire of possessing those robotic limbs, the violent wish to own those robotic bodies overturns any rational response, to the point where the technology seems to own the human, uncaringly.
Taking its title from the Latin “alia” – the other – and the Chinese “zǔ tài” – configuration, Alia: Zǔ tài unleashes the violence and frailty of both the human being and the technologies it creates. It’s a portray of mongrel bodies and their relationships, where both utopia and dystopias are shattered. Should those mongrels find a landing spot after the madness of this power play? And where to land?
Reviews
“Alia: Zǔ tài shows how new technologies and devices can appear innocuous and fearsome at the same time, while leaving us with the question: Will we have to cut the cord at some point? If so, how do we know when — and will we be able to?”
Daniela Silvestrin, Researcher and curator
Shows
- Performance in the Post-human Era
Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, CN, 2019 - Asian Premiere, Theatre in the 21st Century
Goethe-Institut Beijing, CN, 2019 - World Premiere, Technosphärenklänge
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE, 2018 - Pre-premiere, Resonans Festival
KU.BE, Copenhagen, DK, 2018
Credits
Alia: zǔ tài – performance
Concept: Marco Donnarumma
Artistic direction: Marco Donnarumma
Dramaturgy: Marco Donnarumma
Choreography: Nunu Kong, Marco Donnarumma
Choreographic thinking: Nunu Kong, Marco Donnarumma, Lingling Chen
Performers: Marco Donnarumma, Nunu Kong, Lingling Chen
Music, interaction programming: Marco Donnarumma
Physiological computing software and hardware: Marco Donnarumma
Stage design: Marco Donnarumma
Light design: Eduardo Abdala
Stage production: Andrea Familari
Artwork’s description texts: Marco Donnarumma
Live photography: Dario J. Lagana’ | Norte.it, Underskin Photography
Video trailer: Marco Donnarumma
Production management: Rene Dombrowski (2019-2020), Claudia Dorfmueller (2018-2019)
Ran and Ren – robotic prostheses
Concept: Marco Donnarumma
Design, morphology, engineering, fabrication: Marco Donnarumma
Programming, AI software: Marco Donnarumma
Neurorobotics scientific advice, behavioural design framework: Prof. Manfred Hild
Scientific support: Neurorobotics Research Lab, Beuth Hochschule, Berlin
Mentoring: Alberto de Campo
3D modelling, 3D printing, engineering support: Christian Schmidts
External shell design: Ana Rajcevic
The performance Alia: zǔ tài and the robots Ran and Ren are artworks and productions by Marco Donnarumma, realised during, and funded by, his Fellowship at the Graduiertenschule, Berlin University of the Arts. Alia: zǔ tài, Ran and Ren are part of the 7 Configurations cycle, ideated and produced by Donnarumma. Alia: zǔ tài is an international co-production by Chronus Art Center (CN) and CTM Festival (DE). Funded by Goethe Institut’s International Ko-produktion Fund. In-kind support by Resonans Festival (DK).