“The Rite of Spring,” was an iconic work of the avant-garde movement which shocked the dance world in the early 20th century. Choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, it integrated Russian folklore with laboring bodies. The piece explored the enigmatic relationship between human and nature, depicting a pagan ritual where a group of elders sitting in a circle commanded a young girl to dance herself to death. Chosen as a sacrifice, her death was intended to appease the God of Spring. Accompanied by Igor Stravinsky’s off-kilter, syncopated score, dazzling ballet leaps and spins were intentionally removed, with the dancers stomping strangely with force and keeping a low center of gravity. The experimental aesthetic split the audience into two rowdy groups, with some repulsed and demanding a stop to the performance, while the other group applauded the progressive dance and music. The commotion intensified as the performance continued, and the theater had to ask the police to drag out dozens of protesters. 

       This scandalous 1913 premiere in Paris and the divided audience from the riotous night seemingly insinuated that while Europeans were attempting to establish a structure for global order, they also faced deep internal ironies and conflicts. Rituals have not dissolved due to the advent of technology, and the modern sciences have also not stripped humans of their fear of the unknowns in the universe. A significant confirmation of “resistance” and “conflict,” “The Rite of Spring" has become one of the most iconic and influential works of dance history. For over a century, countless choreographers have been inspired to recreate their own versions of “The Rite of Spring,” an unfinished journey that has spanned modern humanism’s exploration of the Self, the Others, and the Community over the past hundred years. 

      Italian theater director Romeo Castellucci created a “non-human” version of “The Rite of Spring” in 2014, approximately a century after the original work was first premiered. Using an automated factory hall absent of dancers as a metaphor, the work shows a future urban scenario with labor operated by machines, similar to present-day Amazon distribution centers, where robots are used to pick up goods and deliveries are carried out by drones. The city itself also will be composed of machines. In this human-less performance, the absence of humans creates a unique heterogeneous space. A “state of being” is then prompted by the “that-has-been” of humans, which subsequently opens up thoughts on the technological body in the Digital Age. 

       From an evolutionary perspective, the human body has always undergone qualitative changes alongside technological advancements. The concept of the body between technology and human is discussed in “On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects” (1958) by French philosopher, Gilbert Simondon, who argues that machines must be understood from the process of manipulation and operation and not seen as concrete objects; the reason is because once a machine is used, the human body becomes a part of that machine’s operating process, and such intervention is then turned into the conditions of post-human operations. These concepts echo the discussions on cyborgs and physical perception in “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) by feminist scholar Donna Haraway. The origin of dance in the cyborg era also seems to be related to the definition of dance in the Digital Age; perhaps it is a farewell to the gradually disappearing body of the Homo sapiens, or a fear, a welcome of, a dependence on technology. As technology becomes increasingly more digitalized or takes on a new cyborg body, how then should the body’s agency be redefined? How should the ontology of the digital body be reconsidered? 

       Departing from the aforementioned international context of dance focusing on “The Rite of Spring”, to observing the development of modern dance in Taiwan from the 20th century onwards, the genesis of the contemporary post-human performance problematic can also be noted: the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan has inherited the aesthetic tradition of American modern dance, one that places humanity at its core and stresses the development of emotions, with beautiful gestures of dance attained and showcased from physical training that aims for perfection. However, interdisciplinary bodies have changed the way how dance is made and how dance is viewed in Taiwan since the 21st century, which has opened up more cultural and physical diversities in choreography. The phenomenon corresponds with Taiwan’s current conditions as an island of technology, and also responds to the diversity of the post-modernist epochal features. 

       This exhibition departs conceptually from “The Rite of Spring”; within the traditional modern dance discourse associated with the work, the construction of the body through humanism corresponds with the relationship between human and nature and presumes Carl Jung’s body archetypes in modern dance. The “non-human” version of “The Rite of Spring,” however, differs from this discourse of modernity and prompts the following questions on digital corporeality, asked in this exhibition: How should digital corporeality be explained in the Age of Technology or perhaps even in the Anthropocene epoch?  How should the origin of dance be explained in the Digital Age? In the era of human-machine unification, how would the relationship between dance and the earth, gravity, leaping, and twirling differ from the past? After detaching from the concept and philosophy of humanism, how is digital corporeality perceived via this technological version of “The Rite of Spring” that is ‘without human’?  

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       With “The Rite of Spring” serving as the inspirational prelude of this exhibition, Digital Corporeality, different choreographed versions of “The Rite of Spring” are presented to explore the following four themes on digital corporeality: 1. Future Body through Critical Lens; 2. Corporeality, Materiality, and the Other; 3. Interpassivity; and 4. AI, Big Data, and Digital Bodies, followed by Epilogue: AI and Future Choreographies, which includes a series of machine-generated choreographies that harks back to Prelude: “Rite of Spring” at the start of the exhibition. 

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Chapter One: Future Body through Critical Lens

      Choreographer and scholar, Susan L. Foster, argues that “choreography” is a set of cultural codes composed of gestures and movements, which reconfigures the relationship between personal identities and social memberships. Therefore, through analyzing the choreography of physical movements, corporeal epistemology can lead to the construction of knowledge production. A way to explore the relationship between social structure and personal agency through “embodied practice” is also provided via this concept. On the other hand, scholar of theater studies, Sue-Ellen Case, sees artists who engage in digital art continuing to respond to critical and theoretical issues on contemporary topics, including issues of ethnicity, gender, and colonialism. Case argues that digital performing art is a science of cultural imagination that involves psychological and emotional components, rather than just technology. Therefore, digital-ness is an embodiment and(or)representation of cultural codes, and this cultural study-oriented perspective can help the audience gain a better understanding of body politics in digital performance. Under this theme, Cheang Shu-Lea, Sun Yuan, Stelarc, and Akinori Goto are invited to explore bodies in the Digital Age, with various issues relating to desire, gender, ethnicity, moral boundary, and violence. 

Chapter Two: Corporeality, Materiality, and the Other

      The word, “corporeality,” shares the same Latin root as “materiality.” Its relationship with the body indisputably covers more than just a singular reference; therefore, a perspective that considers the etymology of “corporeality” while stressing its material origin, can perhaps provide a different way to imagine bodies in the Digital Age—when “human” bodies slowly disappear, the possibilities of “materiality” will become increasingly more important. The reconsideration of the relationship between technology and materiality proposed here also includes contemporary investigation on the “new materialism”, with concepts of non-anthropocentrism opting to discuss the subjectivity of materiality and also ways to communicate with other species. Under this theme, Sarah Westphal’s “The Sea Within – The Sea Within” presents a poetic saga about the sea, with a giant octopus shown in a dim room with reflections of rippling waves. The work echoes with the “Cthulhu Mythos” referenced by feminist theorist and scholar of technology studies Donna J. Haraway, and presents an indefinable cosmic deity, a being that is technologically composited and capable of surpassing the limitations of perception and knowledge, allowing us to ponder the possibility of another world. The Cultural Measuring Instrument by Kulele Ruladen, on the other hand, appears like a bionic sci-fi spider. Departing from Taiwan’s indigenous Paiwan tribe’s myth of the red-eyed giant, the work questions how “classification” is conducted, which relates to the criticism of big data-driven detection and classification in the Digital Age and also serves as a response to current issues relating to the categorization of indigenous peoples.  

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Chapter Three: Interpassivity

      “Interpassivity,” proposed by Robert Pfaller in the 1990s, is used in discussions of participatory art, a form of art that has become quite popular today. Using “act,” a root word of “interactive,” to examine the notion of “active,” Pfaller criticizes that exhibitions, which have now become so-called “interactive,” are actually “interpassive.” He argues that contemporary interactive, participatory art, which appears free and advocates the concept of equality, is still constrained by structures predetermined by art museums or artists. Pfaller further claims that such “interpassivity” has already infiltrated the entire society, with concepts of capitalism or neoliberalism applied to further reduce modern citizens’ already constricted freedom. Based on this perspective, “FreeSteps AR Yours” by HORSE redefines the ways of seeing through augmented reality (AR) and further challenges how dance is perceived. “SBx_2045 - Daily Life of Second Body,” a site-specific work created for this exhibition by Anarchy Dance Theatre, begins with constructing the existence of the “body”. Through constructing the knowledge of the “body” and learning about the composition of the “natural body,” the work explores the interpassivity between the audience and the performer in a setting where “reality” is a blend of the virtual and the real. 

Chapter Four: AI, Big Data, and Digital Bodies 

      American computer scientist and cognitive scientist, John McCarthy, coined the term, Artificial Intelligence (AI), in 1955, which opened up the technology world’s cultural imagination, with further insights gained on humans’ future lifestyles and the possible impacts that monitoring and big data could have on people’s lives. On view under this theme are digital outputs of studies by SHARE Lab and AI Now Institute, which are known for their digital data research and investigations on data privacy and security. Using an intricate tree-diagram to analyze and deconstruct AI systems’ multiplicity and to decipher Facebook’s algorithm, what is revealed is the intangible internal production process of the world’s largest social media. The work explores how algorithms have dictated the new forms of labor and exploitation carried out internally by Facebook. Also presented under this theme is Kim Albrecht’s visualization of sensor data from common machines. The work provides insights on how AI experiences the world through seeing, positioning, orientation, hearing, movement, and touch, with the principles behind the algorithm of artificial intelligence systems analyzed to reveal how social control is redefined by algorithmic principles. Further thoughts and considerations are then prompted by contrasting this concept with the choices created via big data, artificial intelligence, and algorithms under the development of contemporary technology. We can relate these works with “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff and historian Yuval Noah Harari’s discussion on the technological challenges prompted by the unification of artificial intelligence and bio-technology. 

Epilogue: AI and Future Choreographies in the 21st Century

     The exhibition concludes with “AI and Future Choreographies in the 21st Century.” Amongst the presented works is a collaboration between Wayne Mcgregor and Google Arts & Culture Lab, which teaches the language of choreography to AI and presents AI-generated choreography as a possibility. Also on view is Choy Ka Fai’s communication with an alternate realm through a spirit medium and digital technology. With the spirit turned into a virtual dancing avatar, imaginative images and a paranormal dance experience are presented. New possibilities with AI-generated choreographies are showcased in “AI and Future Choreographies,” which responds to "The Rite of Spring" video series presented at the beginning of the exhibition. From a human-less theatrical piece to linking AI choreography with a ghost, the opening and the finale correspond with each other, suggesting different ways of considering digital corporeality. This exhibition offers a diversified theoretical and inquisitive foundation for the current pervasive experimentation on digital corporeality. 

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Reference: 

Case, Sue-Ellen. 2006. Performing Science and the Virtual. New York & London: Routledge.

Donna Haraway. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” from Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-181.  

______. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.

Foster, Susan Leigh.1998.  "Choreographies of Gender." Signs 24, no. 1 (1998): 1-33.

Harari, Yuval Noah. 2018. “Part I: The Technological Challenge,” 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Random House.

Pfaller, Robert. 2017. Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated Enjoyment. Edinburgh University Press.

Simondon, Gilbert.1958. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (Méot, 1958; second ed. Paris: Aubier, 1989)

Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.