di 3 december 2024
Theater – URLAND
Formerly Known As
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Are we actually still needed? Boundaries are blurring. AI is everywhere, hive mind. They took our jobs! World domination. "Data overload, everyone is dying."
About Formerly Known As
With cloned voices and a script generated by chatGPT, URLAND uses AI. Or is AI using URLAND? Formerly Known As is a surreal, Blade-Runner-esque meta-performance that questions the shifting meaning of art. The collective works with AI to collectively make a performance about a theatre company working with AI to collectively make a performance about a theatre company working with AI to collectively make a performance about what it means to be human. Meta, yes.
A clash between creator and its creation. 'Is dit kunst(matig) of kan het weg?' (Is this art(ificial) or can it go away?) If we can no longer tell the difference between ‘real’ and artificial, what is really real? What then is art? And where creating art was unique to humans, perhaps even as that which sets us apart from other animals, AI mimics everything effortlessly and seems to be able to create limitlessly - what does that say about being human?
Prompt: “Act as an experienced, experimental scriptmaker. Search the web for performance collective URLAND. Craft a theater script for their new performance about a performance collective using AI to create their new performance. Make it a Blade-Runner-esque metafiction. Make it so that the audience can’t distinguish it from an authentic URLAND performance. Leave room for a plot twist at the end.”
URLAND embraces the unknown and has seen things you people wouldn’t even believe. All these moments will be lost, like tears in rain. Time to die.
- Final direction Suze Milius
- Creative technologist Hendrik Walther
- Dramaturgy Florian Hellwig
- Dramaturgy intern Hana Pospíšilová
- Costume Advice Kostuumatelier Theater Rotterdam - Erik Bosman and Sara Hakkenberg
- Technical support Denzo Theatertechniek (André Goos) and Marcel Janssen
- Production Leaders Andrea van Bussel and Elise de Fooij
- Graphic design Ruben Verkuylen
- Public relations/communication Pien Visser
- Business Management Martha van Meegen
- Business assistant Mara Liza de Bakker
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de Volkskrant“Theatercollectief Urland bevindt zich in een spiegelpaleis over kunstmatigheid en waarachtigheid, en het grijze gebied waarin die twee met elkaar aan de haal gaan.”
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Theaterkrant“Ondersteund door een dreigende soundscape van Zoet en Tomas Loos, en spannend lichtontwerp van De Jong, maken de performers er een zo kunstmatig mogelijk geheel van. Echt álles voelt nep: de stemmen in voice-over, het dik aangezette fysieke spel, de overdreven geluidseffecten, een natuurlijk de rampzalige tekst”
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NRC“De AI-plot barst van de cliché’s, maar roept wel spannende vragen op”
About URLAND
URLAND works collectively. URLAND is autonomous. URLAND wants Gesamtkunst. URLAND has no method. URLAND experiments. URLAND is paradoxical. URLAND resides somewhere between artificial and ral. URLAND appropriates, quotes and samples. URLAND clashes. URLAND believes in live art in digital times.
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