Fri, Sept 24
|Culture Days
POST-HUMANUM
A raucous theatrical funhouse where humans, robotics and AI merge in multilingual performance anarchy. This event is free and will be accepting optional pay-what-you-may donations for admission.
Time & Location
Sept 24, 2021, 12:01 a.m. – Oct 24, 2021, 11:59 p.m.
Culture Days
About
If you'd like to support the collective's original digital feature, your contribution of any amount would be much appreciated! Please click the "Paypal" link here: Paypal
THEMES:
Our modern life has been converted into a code - our consumer lives catalogued and cross-referenced into transferable and marketable data for sale... Have we humans become only an accumulation of information...data...to be uploaded and sold to the highest bidder? Do our physical experiences and emotions count only in the production of more data?
Our bodies, for some, have become extraneous sensory machines —“meat machines”— that are inefficient, break down and ultimately die. Those technologists are looking for ways to improve the “meat machine” by adding smart prosthetics. Some argue that we already experience the world through our prosthetic extensions. We don’t have to look far. Our smartphones are devices that enhance all our capabilities. But more are planned.
Transhumanists go even further. They’re looking to bypass the body completely by cryogenically preserving the brains until society has technologically achieved immortality. Death becomes a medical disease to be eradicated.
What becomes of our humanity once meshed so completely with prosthetics, algorithms and engineered bodies? A phantom humanity.
FORMAT:
Post-Humanum looks at these questions through a non-narrative, non-linear lens, creating a series of interactive scenes along an immersive promenade. The online version offers a selection of scenes from the total piece. The livestream version will be a hybrid show combining pre-edited video and scenes broadcast live.
The content of the scenes mimic the random juxtapositions on all media platforms of news, ads, personal stories, scientific discoveries and self-help, accompanied by the attending range of emotions from love to outrage. The performance will paint a social snapshot of what it means to be alive today, tomorrow and possibly forever... while integrating a teen and adult public in various participatory activities, live and digital.