Zurich-based choreographer Nicole Seiler, winner of the 2021 Swiss Performing Arts Award for her multimedia creations, comes to the LAC for the first time with Human in the loop, a performance for two dancers that tests the limits of artificial thinking through the medium of dance. Every evening, a new creation comes to life.

What happens when artificial intelligence participates in the creation of a choreography? Starting from instructions generated by AI before each performance – and discovered in real time by the performers on stage – the artistic process unfolds before the audience's eyes, transforming the show into a veritable visual laboratory on the possible relationships between humans and artificial intelligence. The latter is not “visible” on stage, but it can be perceived. Sometimes it can be heard directly, through a synthetic voice; other times it speaks through the performers, who share with the audience the instructions they are receiving as they dance. Sometimes, however, it manifests itself only through a series of metallic and abstract sounds, like a sort of digital thought that becomes partially audible.
But how can an instruction be translated, made visible, interpreted? How should one react if it is incomprehensible? What if what AI proposes crosses an ethical or moral boundary? Everything overflows into joyful transgression, including the lights – also guided by AI – and the sound, which sometimes becomes music, generated and activated by the flow and rhythm of the synthetic voice.
Human in the loop offers an ironic and unsettling look at the dynamics of power, questioning our freedom within a structure governed by algorithms: oppressive, deceptive and often absurd.