DARK is a new performance by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company about artificial intelligence and artificial presence. In this production Verdonck continues his exploration of the tension between presence and absence, real and fake, human and technology, and all this in times of AI.
Kris Verdonk / A Two Dogs Company (BE)
Mustaf Ahmeti and Jeroen Van der Ven are the performers for this piece that consists of three parts: DARK, ACT #2 and BRASS #2. Live and digital bodies and voices alternate, to the point where they are difficult to distinguish. In the theater space, DARK examines that other black box: the space behind the computer or smartphone screen and the algorithms and artificial intelligence behind all kinds of social media and chatbots. A performer surrounded by glass panels manipulates the screens, disappears, reappears and seems to want to draw the audience into their space.
By means of artificial intelligence, ACT #2 continues the work Verdonck and actor Johan Leysen (1950-2023) did on Samuel Beckett. A voice speaks the thirteenth and final part of Beckett’s Texts for nothing, alone in the darkness as blankets rise and fall like ghosts moving across the stage. In BRASS #2, music resounds from three sousaphones, but the source of the sounds is indeterminate in this experiment with artificial presence.
What bodies and forms of life are to be found “behind” our screens and apps? And what impact do those screens and digital entities have on our bodies, our senses, our sense of reality? Like the human performers, the objects in this performance have an ambiguous status. Are they controlled by the performers or vice versa, or do they move autonomously? Everything seems interconnected and the spectator too will have to reconsider their point of view in this haunting world in which the concept of reality is called into question.
Kris Verdonck (born 1974) studied visual arts, architecture and theatre and this training is evident in his work. His creations are positioned in the transit zone between visual arts and theatre, between installation and performance, between dance and architecture. As a theatre maker and visual artist, he can look back over a wide variety of projects. A Two Dogs Company is supporting the artistic practice of artist Kris Verdonck and his companions.
Infos
| DATE | CONTENU |
|---|---|
| 2025/04/152015 |
15.04.2025 20:15 Studio Thor, Brussels Réservations |
| 2025/04/162015 |
16.04.2025 20:15 Studio Thor, Brussels Réservations |
Credits:
Concept & director: Kris Verdonck
Dramaturgy: Kristof van Baarle
Performers: Mustaf Ahmeti, Jeroen Van der Ven
Technical creation & coordination: Vincent Malstaf
Technics: Daniel Romero Calderon & Maarten Devrieze
Composition: Maxime Denuc
Actor (voice): Johan Leysen
Costume : 113 Maison
Co-produced with A Two Dogs Company.
With the support of the Belgian Federal Government’s Tax Shelter, Per Podium, the Flemish authorities, and the Flemish Community Commission.