highlike

KRIS VERDONCK

A Two Dogs Company
END

In the performance END artist Kris Verdonck shows the possible final stages of a human society in ten scenes. Melting glaciers, burning forests, cities under water, ubiquitous screens and cameras spying on us, the uncontrolled availability of weapons of mass destruction, and so on. END starts out from the images the media project onto our retinas all day and every day. The ten scenes are linked by a monologue spoken by a single character: the witness who sees it all happen. While this survivor – like the messenger in Greek tragedy – talks unceasingly, a series of ‘Figures’ appears on stage: machines and people or a combination of the two. They go from one side of the stage to the other, all in the same direction. Are they fleeing something? If so, what?

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Clarissa Ribeiro

Afterlives-Chimeras: Wetland Carbonized Memories

Clarissa Ribeiro

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – WORKSHOP
Electronic Language International Festival

 

Afterlives-Chimeras: Wetland Carbonized Memories – Brazil

Afterlives-Chimeras: Wetland Carbonized Memories reimagines ancient Egyptian animal mummification through the lens of ecological tragedy. Inspired by Brazilian swamps and the destruction of wildlife caused by agribusiness, mining, and the steel industry, the project uses AI (Krea.AI and Meshy.AI) to create hybrid creatures from images of charred animals. The chimeras, 3D printed with PLA, reminiscent of mummified linen, symbolize loss, transformation, and the urgency of ecological balance.

BIO

Clarissa Ribeiro is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at USP and former Director of Roy Ascott’s Technoetic Arts Studio in Shanghai. A PhD holder with a Fulbright postdoctoral degree, she intersects art, science, and technology in morphogenetic practices, adopting animism as a way to navigate ecologies as cosmologies.

Meiro Koizumi

Prometheus Bound
In Greek Mythology, Prometheus stole fire (technology) from Zeus and gave it to humans, and for this, he got crucified on a mountaintop, and had to endure the eternal pain as a punishment. Since the beginning of our civilization, technology has been the source of prosperity and development. But also it has been the cause of great tragedies such as war sand nuclear accidents. Setting the Aeschylus Greek tragedy “Prometheus Bound” as a starting point, Koizumi created VR (Virtual Reality) theater which deals with this age-old tension between humanity and technology, through collaboration with a person who is desperately longing for the technological advancement – a person who is suffering from ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis- the deadly neurological disease that make a person paralyzed). Through the dialogues with the man about his personal life and his visions of the future, they created a sci-fi vision in which past and future, self and others, humans and machines are all merged into one sequence of abstract VR theatrical experience.

POULENC

פולנק
プーランク
Karen Vourc’h
La Voix Humaine

La Voix humaine is the first “lyric tragedy” to take place entirely over the telephone. The argument is simple: this is a woman’s last conversation with the man she loves, as he prepares to marry another. Story of a suicide attempt, distressing cuts, interference: so many stages in this modern telecommunications ordeal where passionate love follows
new ways and deviations.“If you don’t like me and if you were clever,” the woman said to the man, “the phone would become a scary weapon. A weapon which leaves no traces, which does not make noise … “

Patty Carroll

Anonymous Women
In the latest narratives, “Demise,” the woman becomes the victim of domestic disasters. Her activities, obsessions and objects are overwhelming her. Her home has become a site of tragedy. The scenes of her heartbreaking end are loosely inspired by several sources including the game of clue, where murder occurs in one of five rooms of the house: Dining Room, Kitchen, Hall, Conservatory, and Library.

Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca

Afasia
File Festival – Hypersonica
Afasia is a surreal robotic performance that evolves Greek myths, and brings up the tragedy onto-machinal. Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca (Moià, 1959) is well-known in the international art scene for his mechatronic performances and robotic installations. In the 90′s his vanguardist mechatronic performances combined elements such as Bodybots (body-controlled robots), Systematurgy (interactive narration with computers) and Dresskeleton (the exoskeleton body interface). The themes explored in his work include: the use of biological materials in robotics, telematic control, the expansion of body movements with dresskeletons and microbiological transformations.

NATHAN SAWAYA

Натан Савайя
나단 사와 야
ネイサン澤谷
ناثان صوايا
Tragedy