Ollie McSweeney, Contributing Writer
On April 15th, there was a performance art showing at Hamblin Theatre, featuring work by Artists-in-Residence Georgia B. Smith and Zelda Smith. If you missed the live performance, the movable sculpture from the production will be exhibited in the fall on campus. Students and staff from the Arts, Music, and Theater Departments collaborated for six weeks to showcase this performative sculpture alongside music and choreography. Two twenty-minute performances took place at 1 pm and 7 pm. The inspiration for this work was AI, and how it processes human information.
The performance explores the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it’s like to tell a story about human experiences without a body of its own. The dancers, who performed on, around, and through the sculpture, represented a unit of patterns and information. Two screens and reflectors around the stage imitate the processing of neural information. The steel reflectors were indented with the topography of human lungs, so a moving shape was projected onto the screens. A large screen was erected at the back of the stage, showing AI-generated responses. After speaking briefly with Georgia Smith, she explained that the purpose of these generations was to get the AI to respond spiritually.
The sculpture’s base is made of wood, supported by metal fastenings and bars with wheels on the bottom. A metal rod protrudes from the middle of the sculpture, and on top are gloves cast to look like a brain. The sculpture resembles the human form, with the top posing as a head, and the wood of the sculpture itself is carved in a way that looks like bones and joints. The radial structure of the sculpture allowed the dancers to be a part of it, and for the sculpture itself to be a part of the dancers. The unity of all these media created a beautiful visual experience. During the Q&A after the show, all the dancers and many of the contributing artists expressed how this was a new experience for them. It was exciting to witness the exhibition of a new collaborative medium.
the uncanny body is an evolving work, and these performances were the first iteration of this piece. There will be new additions to the sculpture when it is exhibited in the fall. Between the top of the wooden sculpture and the metal rod at the top will be cast faces in different directions around the base of the pole. This will further display the purpose of giving AI a human-like body. Georgia Smith and Zelda Smith are also working on portraying this performance in different, possibly smaller mediums, like videos.
The students and faculty who worked on this exhibition are as follows: Yael Erel on lightwork, Rockwell Noris composed the music, Rachel Wolf was the Lighting Technician, and Elliot Barrett was the Sound Technician. The participating dancers were Madison Butera, Cade Flores, Isabella Galan, Madison Knapp, Jess Mulholland, and Mars Murray. Everyone who worked alongside Georgia and Zelda did fantastic work collaborating and giving this art exhibit life.
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