All Works

An immersive theatre parcours by ArtesMobiles, taking small groups through the hidden corridors, storage rooms, and workshop zones of the Stadttheater Gießen. Costumes, furniture, and props in the theatre’s Fundus (prop store) are given AI voice clones — trained on interviews with craftspeople from carpentry, metalwork, paint studio, costume, props, masks, and stage technology — enabling each object to speak its own story in real time via LLM. Funded by Fonds Zero (Kulturstiftung des Bundes).

«ANA» invites you to discover a new kind of storytelling together with a machine. Through a dialogic process with an artificial intelligence (AI), it is possible to interact with «ANA» and create new, unique narratives between human and machine. This installation encourages reflection on the relationship between humans and AI as well as on the nature of art and creativity. The system is a walk-in installation designed in the style of a photo booth for one person. The interaction between the visitor and «ANA» is based on continuous emotion recognition. At the same time, the system maintains its own affective architecture, based on cognitive models.

This interactive installation uses a depth camera to map visitors’ bodies as a 3D growth surface for neural cellular automata (NCAs)—simple AI agents that self-organize into complex organic patterns resembling roots, leaves, and flowers. Both movement and stillness produce distinct visual results, rewarding dance and contemplation alike. Trained on natural imagery over millions of simulations, the NCAs echo the phenomenon of emergence: how simple local interactions give rise to large-scale complexity. Integration with the Shroomiverse installation allows additional interactions that alter NCA styles, colors, and behaviors on screen.

With their chatbot therapy software, the Swedish company Mindfix catapulted themselves to the forefront of artificial intelligence. Thanks to their superior algorithms, a successful therapy now takes only 8 minutes - an efficiency gain of over 20,000 percent.

But stubborn cases refuse to be cured. For them, Mindfix is developing a secret special project. In an exclusive cooperation with Kulturhaus Helferei, the audience can test this groundbreaking invention for the first time.

AI-Orchestrated Social Hacking

Werner Tübke gave the German Peasants’ War its own depiction in nearby Bad Frankenhausen. The Middle Ages were meant to be dark, full of dangers, diseases, superstitions, and divine proofs. The peasants tried to rid themselves of the feudal order. They demanded a society of solidarity and the establishment of a realm of justice. The feeling of upheaval, war, crisis, and the escalation of conflicts is more present than ever. Times are grim, but a rainbow seems to appear on the horizon. Hope? With Alma Mutig, Anna Lowe, Jens Jenau, and Brother Thomas, four figures set out in search of answers that will lead them out of the darkness. Everyone has an opinion, but who is right? The future is not yet written, so get out of the shaft and into the theatre.

In the year 2050, the emergence of a new species is noted in the HafenCity area of Hamburg. What conditions enable its growth? What will its impact be? Has rapid environmental change and the rising waters helped or hindered this invasive new species?

This guided tour takes you through Europe’s largest urban development project and investigates invisible relations in its unique ecosystem. It enables an imaginative near-future vision of Hamburg, as it experiences a climate crisis. By combining artistic and technological approaches GOOD BYE HAMBURG integrates a pipeline of state-of-the-art AI models, site-specific storytelling and climate data.

Immerse yourself in a visual narrative that unveils a potential future, revealing how your surroundings might be dramatically transformed by the climate crisis. Witness the power of innovation and exploration as we embark on this extraordinary journey of discovery together.

A Geisterbahn ride through the horror; the terror of right-wing thoughts and conspiracies that seep deeper and deeper into the depths of the internet, spread, and capture people at home, behind their screens. What can be done? How can one commemorate victims and raise awareness about right-wing ideologies? How can digital forms and artificial intelligences be created that stand antifascistically against them? The artists of the performance group Cobratheater.cobra explore this in their horror cabinet of German conditions.

German Horror Daemonium is a production that takes place as a theatrical, audio-visual installation. The audience is guided by an avatar through the labyrinthine stage set and simultaneously through the ghost train of the internet. The audience’s path is determined by an artificial intelligence and changes with each performance. Sometimes it leads to the hackers’ garage, sometimes to the Germany map showing right-wing violent acts.

This immersive experience, conceived as the main attractor within the booth architecture by Meiré and Meiré, serves as an artistic intervention against the omnipresence of hate in digital spaces. It is a peaceful statement that raises awareness of the need for greater empathy and mutual respect. With the help of artificial intelligence, real online hate speech is transformed into aesthetic works of art, thereby stripped of its toxicity.

Melete is an interactive video installation telling a personal story about drawing, machine learning, data and failure. The installation documents a long-running project to build a dataset of drawings and experiment with machine learning algorithms. 

This “interactive video installation” is viewable by a single participant at a time and lasts 15 minutes. It consists of alternate narration and drawing exercises.

The installation runs automatically, and is managed by an openFrameworks application. The video is split between a projector and a Wacom graphics tablet. The drawings made by the participants are captured and plotted as part of the installation.

ΣXHALE exposes algorithmic violence by questioning the responsibilities of both artificial intelligence systems and human collectivities. It is an ecosystem of catharsis where humans, plants, fungi, and a custom-made AI named co-create the performance. Through six episodes spanning nine hours, this human-nature-machine entanglement becomes a cathartic ritual exploring alternative forms of empathy and knowledge.

“Regie: AI” presents an experiment in which an artificial intelligence takes over the directing of a theatre piece. This raises novel questions: How does a machine observe what happens during rehearsals? How does it communicate with the performers on stage? And how does directing actually come about? We tackle the highly topical theme of artificial intelligence using a self-developed AI system and embark on a journey of discovery with the means of theatre. Ultimately, we examine not only the interplay with an alien intelligence, but also observe ourselves. A film documents this futuristic undertaking and gives all those involved a voice.

Dancing at the Edge of the World is a speculative performance exploring the intersections between Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory body-based practices and Haraway’s feminist theory. It shifts the focus of knowledge production for AI design by rooting it in the experience of the body — biometric information harvested from moving performers is translated into sonified cues, creating a living cartography of their capabilities and limitations.

Helin investigates new perspectives towards the relationship of an individual artistic intention in respect to the collective nature of human expressions. By blending the concepts of human, nature and technology, the project seeks to discuss a holistic concept of natural phenomena. If an aesthetic object is created without any human leitmotif or purpose, do we witness an accidental product of nature or do we perceive new forms of artificial intentions? The resulting sculpture, Helin, opens questions whether art can be considered natural if it occurs in the absence of individual intent.

Vonderland VR is a multi-sensory, location-based virtual reality tech demo built by You-VR. The experience integrates leap motion handtracking, full-body tracking, and tracked objects to create an immersive VR environment.

Drawing is one of the oldest and most elemental creative disciplines. By making simple marks in response to what we see, we are training many of the core abilities of an artist, from close observation and mark making to creative expression and imagination. Life drawing in particular, involves dissolving the most intimate of subjects—the human body—into a 2D representation that packages all of our aesthetic and emotive responses. As technology continues to influence our lives in new and pervasive ways, so to must drawing’s potential to utilise and reflect on those changes.

Produced and Directed by Janine Myszka, William Park and Meredith Thomas. The Hill Farmer takes us to the Cumbrian fells as we are introduced Joyce King and the traditional fell farming techniques that make this area of the United Kingdom unique. The Hill Farmer was filmed and produced in Spring 2014.