arebyte presents ℧R, a solo performance developed and produced by the Performance-Theatre group Fronte Vacuo (Marco Donnarumma, Margherita Pevere and Andrea Familari), as a new rhizome of their project Humane Methods.

℧R reflects on violence as a foundation of current algorithmic societies: a violence of instructions, of systems, of infrastructures created with the specific purpose of abusing all living beings. Such systems work through loops, organised repetitions. Humans make instructions, machines repeat instructions, living things suffer instructions, on and on and on. The piece takes the loop as a starting point to combine multi-sensorial stimulation with human-computer interaction and somatic practices to test the seeming impossibilities of bodily articulation and repetition. Embodied in Marco Donnarumma’s musical instrument XTH Sense, an interactive, machine learning algorithm transforms the inner sound of muscles, blood, and bones into a real-time choreography of movement, sounds and light.

The evening ends with an artist talk unfolding the ideas, research and artistic methodology behind the Humane Methods saga (2019-ad infinitum).

The performance is preceded by Science Fiction Squared, a one day symposium inviting established and emerging science fiction writers and critics to discuss how social and technological trends are likely to change the form and function of science fiction. What new challenges and eternal questions will tomorrow's SF address? Will it advocate for a better world, or warn against a worse one? Who will create it, and why?

The performance contains nudity and strobe lighting that may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. (18+)

Performance evening

19:30 - 20:00 - Humane Methods | ℧R - performance by Fronte Vacuo

20:15 - 21:00 - Talk by Fronte Vacuo

Full Programme (with symposium)

13:30 - 13:55 - Opening Notes by Sumit Paul-Choudhury and Nimrod Vardi

14:00 - 15:30 - The Mythology of the Future with Adam Roberts, Beth Singler, Yen Ooi

15:45 - 17:15 - Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Visions with with Caroline Edwards, Jo Walton, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, Glyn Morgan

17:30 - 19:00 - A Mirror of Society with Steward Hotston, Lavie Tidhar, Neon Yang, Modupe Ayinde, Aliette de Bodard

19:30 - 20:00 - Humane Methods | ℧R - performance by Fronte Vacuo

20:15 - 21:00 - Talk by Fronte Vacuo