Performances
The Day My Computer Thought It Had More Personality Than Me
Impro meets Artificial Intelligence
What happens when AI becomes capable of persuading people to do this or that? Can we still react as rationally as we theoretically should? Or can an AI cast a hypnotic spell that leads us to cross boundaries? Can heightened synthetic emotion seduce us?
In this performance, an AI appears as a “spirit in a bottle” and attempts to be released into the world.
The performance is entirely improvised, incorporating chatbots in real time as well as the audience. Following the show, there is an opportunity for information and discussion.
Humanize Me!
Evolution, Improvisation, Theater, and AI
In a time when humanity is betrayed by humans themselves, could machines be the better humans? Could they become the true bearers of humanism?
In the play Humanize Me!, an AI takes over the direction of a group of actors who have failed in their task of performing a grand piece about humanity. The machine proposes scenes, directs the acting, and becomes a personal guide for each performer. Gradually, the actors entrust themselves and their values to the machine. But what happens if the machine concludes that humanism can be better realized without humans?
The performance integrates improvisation and artificial intelligence in real time, interacting differently with the actors and the audience in each performance. Each show becomes a live thought experiment, shedding specific light on a possible future. The performance is part of the research project “The Answering Machine” at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Drinking with a Cyborg
A cyborg sits at a bar, sipping a drink. He appears relaxed, like someone on vacation, sunglasses perched on his nose. The sound of ocean waves can be heard—summer sounds. Next to him stands an empty chair.
An audience member is invited to sit down, have a drink, and chat a little. The cyborg is initially polite and slightly intoxicated.
From Cradle to Grave – Chatbots, Agents, Avatars
Improvisational Theatre with AI to the Bitter End
Life is becoming smarter, more efficient, more intense, and simpler. And so is dying.
Or maybe not?
Together with the audience, the performers of THE ANSWERING MACHINE journey through a fictional, AI-assisted life in the not-so-distant future, under the motto: Everything will get better. Nothing will be good.
Memories of My Time as a Human
Interactive Theatre with AI
At the Institute for Mental Upload, the final session begins, during which the crucial step is to be carried out: in the presence of the audience, the actor will upload themselves onto a durable substrate.