What does it mean to create a truly autonomous machine, independent from human control? And what happens when organs live outside of a body? Could this help us understand that the power of the human body lies in its ability to be different and to take on unexpected forms and identities?

Eingeweide (2018) 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.

Eingewide is part of The 7 Configurations cycle, a series of performances and installations at the crossroad between body art, tanztheater, sound art and technology, where Donnarumma, in collaboration with a range of artists, probes the physical, psychological, physiological and symbolic relations between machine intelligence and the human body.

Morphology
40 min piece for two performers
Artificial intelligent prosthetic robot, adaptive neural network, biosensors, LED light, computer-processed sound, multi-channel diffusion, salt, microbial biofilm

Credits
From the 7 Configurations Cycle by Marco Donnarumma
Marco Donnarumma, Margherita Pevere – Artistic direction, performance, staging
Marco Donnarumma – Concept, music, programming, robotics, light
Margherita Pevere – Wearable biofilm, Robot’s skin
Neurorobotics Research Laboratory, Beuth Hochschule – Scientific partner
Ana Rajcevic – Robotics visual design and costume
Christian Schmidts – Robotics 3D modelling and engineering
Andrea Familari – Light design
Claudia Dorfmueller – Production
Manuel Vason – Photography
Dadub Studio – Live audio mastering
Alberto de Campo – Additional programming
Protopixel – Light technology

Commissioned by CTM Festival (DE).
Supported by the Goethe Institut’s International Coproduction Fund. Realised in the context of the Graduiertenschule, Berlin University of the Arts.