Performing Drones. New Perspectives in ...

The overall artistic and scientific objective of the proposed project is to better understand and use the interaction between humans and drones through experimenting with novel approaches at the intersection of performing arts and engineering. Through this, the project addresses contemporary issues in social and cultural theory concerning material agency and performance on an experimental and experiential level. The project connects three research areas: (1) drone research, (2) performing arts-based research and (3) New Materialism and Posthumanism.

The project aims at (1) exploring the theatre as laboratory for human-drone interaction while using Europe's largest drone hall as a theatre stage and (2) examining drones as actors and the interplay of human and non-human actors in an artificial, but artistic context. Therefore, three scenic arrangements will be realised as experimental laboratories between theatre, technology and cultural media studies, which serve to investigate the interaction between drones and actors as equal actors in a performative process. The three focal points of the project are (a) surveillance, (b) swarm and (c) mediation.

The arts-based research sees itself as a creative experimental arrangement to generate new questions about the relationship and interaction between drones and humans and to develop a new dispositif of the theatre. The project establishes a close interdisciplinary and process-oriented collaboration of performing arts, cultural media studies and robotics to investigate and address surveillance, swarm and mediation. Therefore, the following methods are applied: (1) scenic work and improvisation techniques of the theatre, (2) AI-based interaction between cooperative and passive agents and the environment, (3) qualitative interviews and participant observation.