«Ceci Est Une Rencontre» and «dSimon» at FIBA 2022 [AR]

After a period of limitations due to the pandemic, with presentations restricted to the virtual environment, FIBA – Buenos Aires International Festival resumed face-to-face activities in its 2022 edition, filling several spaces in the city, during ten days, with more than a thousand artists on the scene. In its programme, it featured two Swiss works.

Choreographer Marthe Krummenacher [CH] invited local artists, who had never worked together before, to share the stage in «Ceci Est Une Rencontre» (This is an Encounter) and explore the dynamics and alchemy of an unscripted encounter.

In jam sessions, these dance and music professionals had only a draft script and some roles defined by a draw of lots. The risk was the conducting thread of creation and movement. Amidst this environment, there was room for listening, collaboration and the intertwining of stories.

The show «dSimon» brought the experience of media designer Tammara Leites [UY/CH] and artist Simon Senn [CH] with an artificial intelligence system.

To give more personality to the GPT software, available online and capable of writing texts based on information provided by the user, Tammara used Simon’s profile as a model. Next, she added documents, e-mails and data from the artist into the tool, giving birth to the artificial intelligence dSimon. The duo continued feeding the system and created a website (metastories.ch) where it is possible to commission texts and interact with dSimon. But the process exposed a complex relationship with this digital clone.

In FIBA’s sessions, the artists (performing live from Switzerland) narrated this process and counted on the audience’s participation, who entered their own data into the tool and interacted with dSimon.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Marthe Krummenacher trained in Geneva and worked as a dancer with NDT2, Forsythe Company, Noemi Lapzeson, Cindy Van Acker and Pierre Pontvianne, among others. After several years dancing in companies, Krummenacher became increasingly interested in artistic creation. She studied the Japanese martial art of budō, focusing in on the relationship between body and spirit. Her works frequently confront the audience with the meaning and attributions of the body, which she critically interrogates and attempts to redefine.

Tammara Leites, born and raised in Uruguay, is interested in technology and society’s relationship with it. With a formal background in programming, graphic design and visual communication, she decided to undertake a master’s degree in media design at the Haute école d‘art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva, where she currently lives, in order to conceive projects that allow both her creativity and interests to converge. Alongside this, she has joined Transmii Studio as a director of new technology. Her work reflects upon what it means to be a connected human every day.

Simon Senn is an artist, living in Geneva. At first glance, his work suggests that he is a socially committed artist speaking out against a certain type of injustice. However, it sometimes reveals a more ambiguous approach, exploring paradoxes rather than articulating directed criticism. Even though his videos or installations usually are based on a specific reality, fiction is often mixed in. «Be Arielle F» is his first proposal for the stage. During the sanitary crisis of 2020, an adapted livestream version of the performance was created.