Theatrical Intelligence
Total hours: 30h
Contact: obrador@salabeckett.cat
This course will be taught in person. If ultimately it is not possible to hold it at the Sala Beckett, it will be cancelled.
Can theatre be an open world like certain VR games? How do we script decision-trees? How can performances react to the digital challenge?
Artificial intelligence often appears in science fiction as something alien, threatening our species, though it is invented by humans. Since its origins, theatre has been trying to anticipate human emotions and prepare tools to manipulate them as algorithms do. The use of illusion-technologies in theatre dates back to a time way before the invention of the first computers. What’s new in this relationship is the way in which A.I. tackles spectators in interactive scripts ─ supposedly wrapped around highly individualized target groups.
This workshop tries to understand how low-tech algorithms could be scripted and made productive in simple game-structures, audiotours and other forms of immersive performance.
Within the GREC 2021 Festival of Barcelona.
Kaegi co-produces works with Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel under the label “Rimini Protokoll”. Using research, public auditions and conceptual processes, they give voice to ‘experts’ who are not trained actors but have something to tell. Recent works include the multi-player-video-piece Situation Rooms (100% São Paulo with 100 local citizens on stage) and the World Climate Conference (a simulation of the UN conference for 650 spectators in Schauspielhaus Hamburg). The CCCB in Barcelona recently showed their eco-installation Win < > Win and is currently producing their immersive installation Urban Nature. Their Utopolis for 48 portable loudspeakers opened in the Manchester Festival.
Stefan Kaegi is based in Berlin, produces documentary theatre plays and works in public spaces in a diverse variety of collaborative partnerships. Kaegi has toured across Europe and Asia with two Bulgarian lorry drivers and a truck, which was converted into a mobile audience room (Cargo Sofia). He has adapted Remote X, an audiotour for 50 headphones, to dozens of cities (from Taipei to Santiago de Chile), and has toured the interactive installation Nachlass, which portrays people who do not have much time to live, as well as Uncanny Valley (a monologue for a humanoid robot) and Temple du présent, a solo for a live octopus on stage.
Admission to the course will be based on order of arrival and CV assessment, which should be sent (with photograph included), filling in the form on the right.
Places on courses are limited. Places will be reserved once the course amount has been paid. Payment must be made within one week of receiving the corresponding acceptance email.
The dates indicated for each course or seminar may be subject to variations in exceptional circumstances. These will be notified when applicable.
For the course to take place, a minimum number of students must be registered. If this number is not reached, the course will be cancelled and the student will have the option of registering for a different course (providing that there are places available) or alternatively will receive a refund of the amount paid (100%). If a student withdraws, a refund of 75% of the registration fee will be applicable, providing that written notice is given at least 10 days before the start of the course.