Parl-IA-moci: an impossible dialogue (2023)
By and with Diana Höbel. AI consultants: Roberto Trotta and Andrea Gambassi
Set in 1910, this piece features an impossible dialogue between Alma Mahler (played by Diana Höbel) and composer Gustav Mahler (played by ChatGPT), inspired by a love letter from Gustav to Alma, in which he stated that, should he die, his love for Alma would bring him back to life. Conceived before ChatGPT acquired multi-modal capabilities, the piece aims at demonstrating the potential, but also the shortcomings, of current AI chatbots and to generate a dialogue with the audience about the role and future of AI in society. Gustav Mahler’s replies are entirely written by ChatGPT (with suitable prompts), and the finale is played live, i.e., Alma improvises as ChatGPT sends in its answers without previous scripting. The public have responded with great interest and curiosity to the piece, and the debate at the end, featuring a Q&A with the AI consultants and the actress, has brought forth reflections on the creative and technological processes, as well as contextualising the use of AI in today’s society.
Premiered at Festival della Musica di Modena (2023).
Image credit: Diana Höbel with DALL-E.
The Edge of the Sky: storytelling performance (2022)
Laura Cameron and Elspeth Turner during the February 2022 premiere. Credit: Andrew Eaton-Lewis
The Edge of The Sky | Oir Nan Speur, a new, bilingual theatre adaptation of Roberto Trotta’s internationally acclaimed book in which the Italian astrophysicist attempts to tell the history of the Universe using only the 1,000 most frequently used words in the English language. Performed in English and Gaelic, this uniquely Hebridean take on Roberto’s book was created by Lewis-based production company sruth-mara and supported by Creative Scotland and Bord na Gaidhlig. It was accompanied by three new Gaelic writing commissions in which Peter MacKay, Rody Gorman and Elspeth Turner all wrote short original pieces in Gaelic about the cosmos.
Premiering in February 2022 at the Hebridean Dark Skies Festival. With Isle of Lewis arts organization sruth-mara and supported by Creative Scotland.
LIBRA (2021)
With theatre director and video artist Gigi Funcis.
An original theatre play on the theme of satellite mega-constellations, mixing live acting with 3D renderings of an advanced AI.
In the near future, a global corporation has plastered the night sky with internet satellites. Virgil, a middle manager in the company, stumbles on a mysterious pattern hidden in the ads the company runs: could this be linked with the pandemic of compulsive shopping that has struck his own wife? And can a teenage girl with special powers and a moustached AI help him crack the problem?
Supported by Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, SISSA and Museo Storico e Parco del Castello di Miramare. Premiered at Miramare Castle (Trieste) in Sept 2021.
All There Was (2015)
Artists David Cheeseman and Ole Hagen collaborate with astrophysicist Roberto Trotta for week 20 at fig-2. Their exhibition entitled ‘All There Was’ predicates a post-Newtonian orrery, concentrating on the depiction of the All-There-Is and its modelling. The exhibition builds its premises by looking into how we explore the cosmos – observationally and intellectually – and reflects on our understanding of it within the given parameters known to us. Basing its subject-matter on the dichotomy of presentation and the real, ‘All There Was’ is an aesthetic and intellectual speculation of post-Euclidean Geometry basing its forms on a reinterpretation of abstract concepts such as dark matter, dark energy. Cheeseman, Hagen and Trotta will highlight the transformation of fig-2 premises into a temporary laboratory of ideas, through their performative conversation on Monday evening that will speculate about the ‘Big Picture’, the grand scheme of the reality we reside in.
Read here some reflections on the show and event in the blog by Alix Mortimer.
The cosmic house (2013)
A radical reinterpretation of post-Newtonian concepts, with artists Ole Hagen and David Cheesman. Shortlisted for Artangel’s Open 100.
Urban Sputnik (2011)
A pair of sculptures that developed as a novel way to express the frontiers of astrophysical research in a non-technical, more inclusive way, which uses art and design as its primary language. These pieces offer a metaphorical sensory experience connecting the user with distant cosmological phenomena that cannot otherwise be directly perceived nor experienced on a human scale. With Vanessa Harden and Dr Dominic Southgate of WildFlag studios.
Beyond Entropy: Potential Energy (2010)
A research cluster coordinated by the Architectural Association, aiming at creating novel explorations of the concept of energy. With architect Julian Loeffler and artist Peter Liversidge. Our work has been exhibited at the Venice Architectural Biennale in Aug 2010, at the Architectural Association in London in May 2011, and it was featured in Nature.
Potential energy: The prototype. Loosely based on Maxwell’s demon.
