Ex Silens 1

Marco Donnarumma

22:00

coming soon

What is deafness if not another mode of perception? What is a cyborg if not an exploded mirror of today’s corporeal experience? What is the fear of the other if not a prelude to isolation? What is the instability and interdependence of the human body if not the core of its existence? »Ex Silens« is an experience into a radically alternative sensorium through the entanglement of two bodies, two agencies. One is made of diverging limbs and flesh, the other of resonating bones and cables. They sound and vibrate, entering into material, sonic, and conceptual feedback with one another; they become one, but not for long.

An exacting and sinuous ritual of sensory reorganisation, »Ex Silens« delves into the corporeal knowledge hiding at the edges of experience. It is a dreamlike encounter, yet raw and real. It is a reminiscence, a reverie surging through real-life accounts of modes of perception that are systematically rejected by the imperative of the normal. Here, cochlear implants, AI hearing algorithms, and amplifiers are extracted from their capitalist chain of production and subverted to create prostheses with their own agencies. Radically intimate, the prostheses are organs of sharing: they amplify sounds from the performer’s muscle, heartbeat, and blood flow, diffuse vibrations through the bodies of audience and performer, and in doing so, resonate sensible forms of being.

Technology is, by its nature, normative, but it doesn’t have to be. In »Ex Silens,« hearing algorithms, AI and cochlear prostheses are not what they are supposed to be. They are morphed into new means of sensing; they do not try to repair a loss with a gain, but rather magnify a kaleidoscopic sound world that’s always been there. Will you be able to perceive it?

Ex Silens is part of the series I Am Your Body (2022-present), a project investigating deafness, sound, and (artificial) intelligence through participatory research driven by d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

Event Access

Warning: This show will take place with loud volumes and may include stroboscopic lighting effects. Please consult our Accessibility section for an overview on volume / lighting, and information on mobility, age restrictions and other access information.

Marco Donnarumma – Concept, artistic direction, performance, choreography, dramaturgy, prostheses concept and morphology, interactive AI music
Intelligent Instruments Lab – hardware and AI software collaborative research
Anna Cingi – Prostheses visual design and 3D modelling/printing
Marco Donnarumma, Anna Cingi – Stage design
Andrea Familari – Light design
Wojciech Czernia, Adriane Große, Ann-Catrin Gruber, Martin Holst, Mara Matzke – Collaborative research group
Kotryna Slapsinskaite – Production
Margherita Pevere – External eye

A production by Marco Donnarumma. Co-produced by PACT Zollverein and CTM Festival with scientific support by the Intelligent Instruments Lab at the Iceland University of Arts, Rekjavík. The first stages of the project's development were funded through a Media Art Fellowship from the  Ministry of Culture and Science of the Federal State of North-Rhine Westphalia.