NOT (SO) HUMAN by Christine Saulut Bonansea creates a dystopian world about KI and augmentation, with the help of Luca Forcucci’s soundscape and Riccardo Castagnola’s projections. The piece can be seen at DOCK 11 from 16 to 19 April 2026.
It is dark. I vaguely recognize a ropey entity looming in the middle of the space, from ceiling to floor. Beats resonate with the sounds of flapping chains and clanging metal. Lights flash. The person next to me flinches at the next bang. I am fascinated by the audio landscape, which simultaneously evokes something uncanny. Flame-like projections appear on the walls and then disappear. The feeling of being transported into a parallel world with an element of dystopia intensifies. I slowly make out body parts in the middle of the room. They stack on top of one another, fall to the ground, and get back up again. I am mesmerized by the movement quality of this bodily formation, whose many isolations make it seem incredibly unhuman.
In the semi-darkness, I can make out a creature, half human, half – I’m not quite sure what. The creature is wearing a mask with probes or feelers and is connected or chained with a rope to something. Is it an umbilical cord or is it entrails. No, that would be too human. Is it an oversized cable connected to a computer that the creature is controlling? Is the creature a prisoner or here of its own free will? Twisted body parts, plodding movements, the entity moves head over heels until it comes to a stop. Even once it is still I can not make out a human figure. Strobe lights interrupt the event, breathing entities appear in the projections, there is one blackout after another. We get brief glimpses into the real life of the creature on stage. Fragmented, juxtaposed scenes allow its movements to reverberate in the darkness.
The quality of the movement changes and for the first time I perceive the creature as human. New, comparatively ‘beautiful’ movement patterns involving high leg movements offer a contrast to the previous ‘monstrous’ movement qualities. It all seems ‘normal’ to me, and I miss the expressive quality from before. Again and again, the rope is pulled and slammed on the floor. The background music crescendoes and with the next flash of the strobe lights I feel completely overstimulated. With the next bang, the person next to me flinches again.
The person-creature squirms out of the mask. A new movement sequence begins on stage, as the dancer fills up the space with rolls and turns. I see the performer’s face for the first time during the applause.
Afterwards, I search the description of the piece for a trigger warning for strobe lights and other effects and find nothing. I think about AI, augmentation, and the dystopian entity on the stage. How would it be if human and machine were one and the human were to find itself in a performative, dependent position? Is this already the case to some extent here and now?
Happy with my text, written completely without AI and the associated water consumption and occasional AI-hallucinated facts, I stop writing. But what if the article had been even better with a little help from AI…
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
NOT (SO) HUMAN by Christine Saulut Bonansea had its German premiere from 16 to 19 April 2026 at DOCK 11.