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).
Marco Donnarumma
Born in Naples in 1984 is a media and performance artist, director, composer and scholar. Since the early 2000s, he has been interbreeding contemporary performance, media art and computer music to inquire into the recondite matters of the human body. He is widely known for his performances probing the body through sound physicality, technological engineering and movement research. Oneiric and uncompromising, sensual and confrontational, his language is often rooted in the experience of ritual, shock and coercion. His repertoire tours regularly from theaters to concert halls, festivals and museums, and has been presented in 65 countries worldwide.
A dissection of violence – as exerted by humans against their kin and environment through direct action and technological development – lies at the core of his new production, Humane Methods. The piece, commissioned by Centre des Arts (FR) and Romaeuropa Festival (IT), was created in collaboration with Margherita Pevere. His latest cycle of performances and installations, entitled 7 Configurations, focuses on the conflictual relations between artificial intelligence and body politics. Co-produced by CTM Festival and Chronus Art Center with the support of Goethe-Institut and the Berlin U. of the Arts, the works are currently touring in Europe and Asia.
Donnarumma received numerous acknowledgments, the most recent include the Digital Award at Romaeuropa Festival 2018 for Eingeweide; two awards at the Bains Numériques Biennial 2018 (Performing Arts and Press Award), as well as the Award of Distinction (2nd prize) in Sound Art at the Prix Ars Electronica 2017 for Corpus Nil; and the endowment of Artist of the Science Year 2018 by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education for Amygdala. He holds a Ph.D. in performing arts, computing and body theory from Goldsmiths, U. of London, and in 2016-18 was a Research Fellow at the Berlin U. of the Arts in partnership with the Neurorobotics Research Lab Berlin. His writings are published by MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, ACM and Springer.
Margherita Pevere
An artist and researcher based between Berlin and Helsinki. Pevere is PhD candidate (Artistic Research) at Aalto University, Helsinki, in collaboration with Biofilia Laboratory – Base for biological arts, supported by Kone Foundation (2019–2020). She is member of the Finnish Bioart Society, the Eco- and Bioart Research Network, and the Posthumanities Hub. Bacteria, animals and plants are her allies in the exploration of underlying theme of ecological complexity, which she pursues with sophisticated bodily aesthetics. Created both in the studio and in biological laboratories, Pevere’s installations and performances are chimeras intertwining poetics and controversy, critique and desire. Most recent shows include Experiment Zukunft, Kunsthalle Rostock (DE); Emergent Form, the Fields Institute for Research in mathematical Sciences, Toronto (CA); What is life?, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki (FI). In 2018 she was awarded the Digital Art Award of Romaeuropa Festival (with Marco Donnarumma) and the Honorable Mention at the Share Prize. (source: www.margheritapevere.com)
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