In this performance, Verdonck continues his research into the tension between presence and absence, the real and the fake, humans and technology, in times of AI.

Mustaf Ahmeti and Jeroen Van der Ven are the performers in this three-part work: DARK, ACT #2, and BRASS #2. Live and digital bodies and voices alternate, to the point where they become difficult to distinguish. DARK explores another black box within the theatre space: the space behind the computer or smartphone screen, and the algorithms and artificial intelligence behind social media and chatbots. A performer, surrounded by glass panels, manipulates the screens, disappears, reappears, and seems to draw the audience into their space.

Through artificial intelligence, ACT #2 continues the work that Verdonck and actor Johan Leysen (1950–2023) created around Samuel Beckett. The thirteenth and final part of Samuel Beckett’s Texts For Nothing (1952), spoken by the voice of Johan Leysen, resonates in a space filled with stacks of grey blankets. In BRASS #2, music emerges from three sousaphones, though the actual source of the sounds remains undefined in this experiment with artificial presence.

What kinds of bodies and life forms exist “behind” our screens? And what impact do those screens and digital entities have on our bodies, senses, and perception of reality? Just like the human performers, the objects in this performance have an ambiguous status. Are they controlled by the performers, or the other way around — or do they move autonomously? Everything seems interconnected, and the spectator must also find their position in this ghostly world where the concept of “reality” is destabilised.