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The exhibition ‘Máquina Mística’, curated by Charles Carcopino, is the focus of this 2nd edition of the festival, which was inaugurated yesterday. It covers, through 22 installations by 13 artists and groups, how technology affects and changes people’s behavior, the regional government said in a statement.
Reúne obras by Filipe Vilas-Boas, Véronique Béland, Thierry Fournier, Cécile Babiole, Petites Planètes, Evi Keller, Daily tous les jours, Félix Luque Sánchez, Benjamin Vandewalle, Claire Williams, Esther Denis, Joris Strijbos & Nicky Assmann y Golnaz Behrouznia Dominic Peyson.
His pieces range from installations to audiovisual projects, and some allow the interaction of the public, who can attend the creation of a piano score according to their emotional state, in ‘As we are Blind’ by the Canadian Véronique Béland, or a broadcast of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, which is transformed by the presence of visitors in the work ‘I Heard There Was a Secret Chord’, by the Canadian collective Daily tous les jours.
The nine Canal Connect performances performed in the three Canal Theaters, with seven national premieres, deal with topics such as social networks (Instagram), video games or the relationship between humans and robots.
‘Room with a View’, a show created by the French musician Rone with the collective (La)Horde and performed by the Ballet National de Marseille (24 and 25 March), calls for protest and rebellion through dance, in a setting that recreates an immense marble quarry.
For his part, the German visual artist and composer Ulf Langheinrich uses stereoscopic 3D in the dance piece ‘Vortex’ (March 25 and 26), produced in collaboration with choreographer Maria Chiara de’Nobili, to generate a visual and sensory impact in the viewer.
The creation ‘_jeanne_dark_’, by the French Marion Siéfert (March 26 and 27), is based on the experience of a teenager on Instagram, where she broke her silence after being harassed and teased about her virginity, to give a double show to create theater and this social network.
CELL CHOREOGRAPHY AND DANCE WITH A ROBOT
In another show, the Japanese choreographer, dancer and visual artist Hiroaki Umeda presents two pieces (March 29 and 30): ‘Vibrance’, in which he fuses his own choreographic system with the language of hip-hop, and ‘Median’, which shows how human and non-human bodies are indistinguishable under microscopic observation and explores the choreography of cells.
Also from Asia comes the Taiwanese choreographer and dancer Huang Yi, who dances at Huang Yi & KUKA (30 and 31 March) with a robot according to his invention, ‘KUKA’.
From March 30 to April 3 there will be a double program with Oecumene and Gamer. The first piece is a production by Spain’s Stocos Institute that combines dance and music to reflect on the individual’s place in the world, expanding their senses through technology; while the second, created by Christine Bonansea together with a team of multimedia artists combining art and artificial intelligence, presents scenes featuring Lasermice robot sensors, bodies, electronic music, 3D digital dreamscape images, video mapping and lighting design. †
In ‘Centaur’ (April 1-3), created by Swedish choreographer, dancer and filmmaker Pontus Karl Johan Lidberg for the Danish Dance Theatre, the consequences of artificial intelligence (AI) and the power of technology are humanized through the movement of dancers performing a choreography created by an AI program, based on multiple data sets, while interacting with this AI, which can simulate consciousness, emotion and intention, through voice and text.
Also Wednesday! 008′ (April 2 and 3), a work created live, through improvisation, with Chilean artist Nicolás Jaar providing the music; The Mexican choreographer, artist and dancer Stéphanie Janaina dances it, while the Iranian graphic designer and artist Maziyar Pahlevan creates the texts and images.
In addition, the project offers space for reflection with five roundtables that present several pieces from ‘Máquina Mística’ (March 25) and the themes of Spirituality and Technohumanism in Art (March 26), Spirituality and Identity: An Approach to Artistic-Technological (March 29) , the binomial art and technology in the transcendence of the person (March 31) and transcending the essence of the person in the spaces of contemporary creation and exhibition (April 1).
