SH4DOW / SKY66EN

LISTEN TO CONNECTED PODCAST

• EXPLORING REALITY - There are more options for reality and in this podcast we'll share different aproaches to playing with our perceptions of reality. Which role democracy plays and how you give people tools to understand their reality and to change the world around them. Starring: Henrik Vestergaard (LiveartDK/Performance Trilogy), Mikael Fock (SH4DOW), Hilkka-Liisa Ilvanainen (Tampere Theatre Festival).

THE CONTEXT

With the appearance of chatGPT, and Ai`s in all mobile applications, it has become even more important to reveal and discuss the occupation of artificial intelligences in our lives. HC Andersen wrote about how the human let his shadow enter the chamber of art, love and poetry, instead of himself. Maybe this is what is happening in our mobiles today? We let our personal AI`s take the defining steps for us. The performance is a techno-anthropological experiment. As a part of the performance you witness a performer improvise live on stage with an Artificial Intelligence, a slowly harvest her memories and feelings. The machine learning algorithm is trained on a dataset of billions of texts from which it has learned to generate conversation in real time. Each performance is a distinct, unpredictable event. We are exploring if we can create the perfect Machine: the Artificial Intelligent Machine, the artistic Machine, the Machine with human emotions - yes, maybe even more than that. The Machine that dares to take the steps that the humans themselves don’t dare to take.

THE COMPANY

Mikael Fock is the producing director, conceptualist and scriptwriter behind the idea of creating a performance in interaction with an artificial intelligence, inspired by HC Andersens fairytale “The Shadow”. Since three years the team has had to discard at least 20 scripts versions to create a performance without a classic script dramaturgy, but with an artificial intelligence’s new ability to create new narratives through the live improvisations with actor and audience. With a background as theater director and media artist Mikael Fock, has been directing and developing a large number of theater

performances especially in the field of Art and technology and immersive theater, nationally and internationally.

Mikael Fock has been the CEO and artistic director of the Cultureyard since 2010 until today 2022. During these years he created the international Art and Tech Festival Click,and started to make international performance productions in this field.

INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY

SH4D0W is in english and has already been performed at Dunkers Kulturhus, Sweden, Ars Elctronica Festival 2022 i Ostia, AvenyT Copenhagen, Teatros del Canal in Madrid and is invited to perform at festivals in Helsingborg, Delft (Holland), Halle (Germany), Festival X in Dubai, and National Theater in Taipei,- in 23 and 24. The performance is never the same because of the live improvising Ai and has with its moderne 3D generative visuality a great attraction to a young (gaming) audience. The performance is designed for a broader public and for international art and art-tech festivals, as well as students in universities or high schools that could have a special interest in the performance and the subject.

FORMAT AND SUSTAINABILITY

The performance does not use any props or physical set designs, neither does it have big transportation costs because all the scenography is digital, and run from computers and projectors. All lighting and projection technology is LED. The production company can, by opening a new folder in the computers switch to another performance instantly. The 4D indicates that over time it will be possible to put up other 4D boxes in the world and simultaneously perform physically or virtually from all over the world at the same time, one the same stage.

CONTACT PERSON

Mikael Fock / Mikael Fock production / mikael.fock@gmail.com / +46 25414142 / website: mikaelfock.com

TRIGGER WARNINGS

TBA

TARGET AUDIENCE GROUP

The performance is in english and has been performed at festivals like Ars Electronica in Linz and High Light Delft. At Helsingborg Stadsteater, Sweden it has performed for students at high school to introduce and discuss AI in the arts, and in normal theatres it has just performed for audiences between 12 and 100, always with a discussion afterwords.

SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

The new digital technologies such as VR and AR- are very excluding technologies where you more or less sit by your own in your own universe. The 4D box provides as, to our knowledge, the only theatrical 3D experience, where you can experience digital universes mixed with live actors, and where you sit among a live audience - with the feeling of real theatre