CONVERGENCE

Light reflects onto sensors. A robotic dog lifts what appears to be its head; a robot vacuum changes direction. Silke Grabinger moves between them: not as a controller of technology, but as a participant in a conversation whose rules no one fully understands. These rules must be renegotiated: between the entities of robot and human, but also between both and those observing. We find ourselves within a contemporary social discourse on moving bodies that are not animate.

Using infrared light, Silke controls the movements of Boston Dynamics’ “Spot” and an autonomous robot vacuum. Yet the technology disappears behind an illusion: suddenly, the robots seem to make decisions, as if they could feel emotions. Even the audience believes itself to be empathetic. They feel compassion when one robot climbs onto the other. Anthropomorphization is in full swing in the minds of the observers.

Thus, the playing field of projection is opened. Yet the robot does not project back. Instead, it creates an in-between space that gives us more room for interpretation - more than when one human encounters another. The boundaries between programming and intuition begin to blur, and with them, our certainty about who is actually acting here.

The audience experiences an unsettling intimacy that raises questions lingering long after the performance has ended: Can a machine surprise us? Does it have a goal, a preference? Can a human trust it? And what does it say about us when we perceive embodied algorithms as counterparts?

In CONVERGENCE, the stage becomes a laboratory of encounter. The performance offers no answers—it creates space for interpretation and a certain degree of irritation, room for discourse: for the question of what “life” means in a world where AI-driven decisions anticipate our gestures. For the unease and fascination of a future that has already begun.

A special 15-minute adaptation for Futurium.

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