October 28th 2021, 6pm
DA Fest and EthicAI=LABS presents Amazon Dance (2021) - a live dance performance and video streaming, 60min
More info: 2021.da-fest.bg/en/da-fest/performances/amazon.html
goethe.de/prj/eai/en/eve/22357973.html

Director: Nico Angiuli
Choreographer: Katerina El Raheb
Goethe-Institute Bulgaria, 1 Budapesta str, Sofia

Goethe-Institute’s project EthicAI=LABS and DA Fest collaborate to present the online premiere of Amazon Dance by director and visual artist Nico Angiuli. After the performance we invite the viewers to a discussion with the authors.

Amazon dance is a video performance, part of a research work that aims to study algorithms used in factories such as Amazon, for finding the minimum time and the most efficient way to arrange and deliver items in large warehouses, which is a costly and time consuming process. Although many of these tasks are performed by humans, their routes are perfectly predetermined based on algorithms and their movements are specific to achieve the goals of each shift: picking the maximum number of products.

In the light of large corporations' ever-so-controversial labor policies the performance raises the question: is human labor or a robot more cost-effective? How does this translate to the performing body? Nico analyzed such algorithms in order to create a form of choreographic “score”. How can the abstract space of computing and unseen calculations be represented through bodily movement and effort?

Researcher in informatics and choreographer Katerina El Raheb, and a group of dancers, the team worked on this “translation” exploring how such an algorithm could be embodied and represented in space.

The performance was produced in 2021 by Onassis Stegi, as part of the European Media Artists in Residence Exchange (EMARE) program of the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Livestream at DA Fest: facebook.com/DAFest