DEUS::EX::MACHINA :: Human Geography in a Virtual World - CAPE TOWN

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DEUS::EX::MACHINA live performances in Cape Town: SIDE STREET STUDIOS, WOODSTOCK.

Join us for our final performances of 2023!

Kick off the summer festive season with us on Saturday 02 December: The day includes live performances of our telematic work DEUS::EX::MACHINA, with eclectic music by Okapi, Cuddly Gangsta and Your Best Friend.

10h30 - Vinyl Set - Best Friend Records (Jazz / Funk)

11h30 - LIVE PERFORMANCE | DEUS::EX::MACHINA

12h00 - Vinyl Set - DJ Cuddly Gangsta (Electronica / Trip Hop)

13h00 - LIVE PERFORMANCE | DEUS::EX::MACHINA

13h30 - Vinyl Set - DJ Okapi (Bubblegum / disco )

Wines from our friends at Khayelitsha's Finest Wines, Beers and snacks from the Underground Cafe.

Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre’s flagship project, deus::ex::machina - human geography in a virtual world, returns this December to form part of the curated programme for the 2023 Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg. This hybrid work offers live and online interactivity.

This multiplayer game invites viewers to meet online or in real life, in a shared experience of simulated connection. The deus::ex::machina virtual experience is driven by you, the viewer, and demonstrates a real time exercise in cause and effect, infinite probability and random points of connection. The viewer controls the dancers via a real time voting process through their devices, ultimately affecting each unique experience of the telematic performance, as it unfolds live and via live stream.

The deus::ex::machina experience is designed to mimic an old - school arcade game, and functions as multiplayer game. Over the course of six levels, dancers receive the outcomes of audience inputs via headphones, and each dancers performs their next choreographic phrase as decided by the audience. This codification of human movement, echoes the coded functionality of the work’s interactive telematic elements, speaking to the digitisation of our human experience. 

deus::ex::machina becomes a physical embodiment of man vs machine. No two performances are the same, and each audience experience unique.

deus::ex::machina was developed during, and in response to, the global lockdown in 2020, and has since continued speaking to the universal themes of connection, control, democracy and the digitisation of the human experience. deus::ex::machina is a physical expression of human geography, a search for connection within chaos. Part telematic performance, part interactive online experience, deus::ex::machina is live, real time motion controlled by the audience. 

deus::ex::machina is conceptualised and choreographed by Louise Coetzer, with interactive design by Thingking. 

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