manτεία is a new media performance that examines our relationship with artificial intelligence (AI) in the digital era. Through an immersive experience that blends digital and physical performance, it tests the boundaries of aesthetics in generative neural networks and interrogates our desire to find meanings in algorithmic outputs, where the struggle to produce meaningful experience is evident.

The 1-hour performance creates a multimedia audio-visual experience with the latest digital technologies in artificial neural networks, computer graphics, generative algorithms, machine visions, and livestream data to prompt a reflection on the future of media consumption. It parallels how ancient practices of geomancy and divination relate to our desire to find meaning in AI. In the ancient world, oracular figures would function as vessels for communicating the will of the divine. By recasting a performance built on AI tools as an act of divination, manτεία suggests that our current relationship with AI is evolving in a similar direction. When faced with a system that can synthesise more information than any living human, we find ourselves consulting systems that we are alienated from (the black box problem), and trusting in rationales whose reasoning we might never truly understand.

manτεία returns us to the ancient quest to communicate with the transcendent, by looking for messages in clouds and melodies in noise and meaning in the immensity of large language models. 

Date: Sun, 22 December 2024

Sessions: 15:30 / 19:30

Venue: The Box, Freespace, WestK, Hong Kong

Artistic Directors: Roberto Alonso Trillo | Peter A C Nelson

Producer: Jiafan Weng
Featured Artists: Taurin Barrera | Joseph Chan | Lazarus Chan Long Fung | Vvzela Kook | Samuel Swope | Davor Vincze | Karen Yu | Current.cam (Provides Ng, Yanzi, Eli Joteva, Artem Konevskikh)
Performers: Ching Chu | Keung Hoi-Ling
Light Designer: Rachel Ip Chun-Lam
Sound Designer: Allison Fong Tsz-Ching
Stage Manager: Vivia Ho

Ticketing link: https://www.westk.hk/en/events/man%CF%84%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%B1-manteia?tab=overview