D.A.K.I.N.I. performance

[ D.A.K.I.N.I. is a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary performance aimed at investigating and creating dialectic bridges between the theme of Artificial Intelligence, new technologies and contemporary Feminist Theories. ]

[ Encompassing debates, questions and near-future predictions on rampant IA issues and their potential repercussions and extending its reach to the theories of philosophers and activists who, already back in the ’80s, preached taking over science and technology and illustrated the need for a deterritorialization of ideas.
“In a world ridden by the computer science of domination, women have to deal with the question of their involvement with technology, and face its complexity”.
How can AI serve feminist theory and life? How can women take control of it? What happens after they do it? ]

[- C – R – E – D – I – T – S -]

{ Performers }
» Federica Guarragi «
» Isadora Pei «
» Ester Fogliano «
» Alessandra Sala «

{ Direction + Visual Art}
» Isadora Pei «

{ Dramaturgy }
» Emanuele Policante «

{ Music Composer }
» Carlo Valsesia «

{ Organisation }
» Selene D‘Agostino «
» Sara Giorla «

( Year 3.7 )

[ The planet
has been devastated by a cataclysm;
women have disappeared and the male oligarchy
in charge creates biocyborgs with feminine features
suited to their sexual pleasure and to the reproduction and generation
of male-only fetuses; the mnemonic faculties of these biocyborgs are annihilated and zeroed and their bodies are dismantled and reassembled every 15 years; the downloaded data are used to make improvements and create new models suited to the tastes of the customers and the market surveys. The biocyborgs live deprived of experience and memories. A latest generation biocyborg has a system bug that allows her to maintain data accumulated over the previous 15 years. She does not recognize herself in the new body she is given and begins to ask herself questions. Who I am? What am I? She wanders through the abandoned suburbs of the cities and often comes across an image she does not manage to decode. The image torments her, though. She investigates. She finds it again inside an apartment in the form of a huge drawing on the wall and, after tearing the wall apart, finds a box with an old terminal computer and a memory chip. It contains testimony: a female activist philosopher has saved a video message in which she tells about women, from their appearance to their disappearance, about matriarchal societies, about the Great Goddess, slavery, the struggles for emancipation, the conquest of rights, the movements of women and women rallies, feminist theories, women’s studies, gender studies, queer theories, sexual policies, wage equality. It is an awakening. She furthers her quest. A metamorphosis ensues. She gives herself a name: D.A.K.I.N.I. She conjures up a plan. She goes back to the production centers and creates a male-looking alterego to access the headquarters of power and then upload her own bug into other biocyborgs so that they can develop the same memory she has acquired and block their reproductive functions. She builds an army of female-allies. They overthrow male power in force
and lock up the last surviving men in protected reserves. Sudden awareness follows.
What are we doing, they ask themselves? Are we repeating their own script?
What is to be done? D.A.K.I.N.I. and her fellow sisters create a new way
of moving and interconnecting with the Whole,
through dematerialisation of bodies,
a movement of free particles
in space and
time. ]

{ Contemporary themes / Multidisciplinarity / Original dramaturgy and music/ Co-production of the Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium (NTL) / Patronage by Turin University – Dipartimento Studi Umanistici, the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA) and Université Grenoble Alpes – UMR Litt&Arts / Project selected for CROSS Award 2018 and co-produced by CROSS Residence 2018 / The project is realized with the support of Compagnia di San Paolo, within the Bando ORA! Produzioni di Cultura Contemporanea }